CHI 2010: Family Story Play (Nokia / Sesame)

Family Story Play – Hayes Raffle / Nokia
Families spread apart yet struggle with technology – esp kids under 5 (abstract concept of telephone as person’s voice)
Young kids + grandparents have most desire to communicate and time to do so

Design guidelines –

(1)     promote dialogic reading activities (reading book combo w/ dialogue around it, engage in questions)

(2)     support typical reading experiences (bed time stories, page turning)

(3)     provide shared context (coordinating page turns)

(4)     accessible and playful

story play compared to skype:

·         engagement higher on FSP – engaging with physicality of book

·         spent longer time reading the story on FSP

·         gparents asked twice as many questions on FSP vs skype

a new kind of collaborative storytelling

CHI 2010: Co-Designing for + with the iChild

Designing for the iChild – Allison Druin U of MD, Mona Leigh Guha U of MD, Jerry Alan Fails (Montclair)

Add’l dimensions in design now:
Partner location (collacted to distrbutied)
Scale of content (closed to infinite) – e.g. internet
Relationship to physical (dependent not deep, disconnected) – role of taking content onto mobile vs not

The iChild is…
Interactive, independent, international, information active, socially aware, highly mobile

Gary Marsden work in South Africa – pictures of kids with cell phones

http://people.cs.uct.ac.za/~gaz/research.html

Kids leapfrogging over old tech to new tech (kids in Africa didn’t have desktop computer, but have a cell phone)

Cooperative Inquiry:

• A method of design partnering with children – Druin, 1999
• Kids are researchers, adults are partners
• Techniques include sticky note critiquing, low tech prototyping, mixing ideas

Bonded Design techniques include:
Drawing, brainstorming, games, journaling, demonstrations, surveys

• Adults bring materials, short shots such as coming into school for selected period of time

Bluebells technique (Kelly et. A. 2006)

• Three phased design process:
• Before play (adults make decisions)
• During play (children)
• After play (adults)

Children as software designers (Kafai 1996, 1999)
Children become programmers of software, children are designers – not partners

#1: Co-designing for Mobility Technique:

Low tech prototypes with art supplies in small groups with high ratio of adults to children (working as partners – not observing)
Examples:

(1)     tangible flags: use tablets to enhance learning on field trips (Chipman et al. 2006)

(2)     mobile stories: use mobile devices for collaborative narrative system (Jerry Fails phd research)

Task: work on app or change ipad hardware for kid reporters – what does future ipad look like to enable you to be a kid reporter at this conference?

#2: Layered Elaboration Technique:

Groups create a storyboard to solve a problem
Groups iterate upon each other’s designs using transparencies
Groups share their ideas in “stand up” meetings

Example:
Interactive game designed to teach children about energy conservation (see note from conference proceedings)

#3: Distributed co-design

• Techniques for working with design partners who are not physically co-located, and may be working across time zones
• Depending on needs and resources of teams, can be done in variety of ways including:
• video co-design (video conference)
• eCo-design (send ideas via email “the hub” and adults are the “spokes” – doing elaboration from those ideas)

interactive co-design (new tech allow users to pass information)

CHI 2010: Accuracy of Deictic Pointing in CVEs

Where Are You Pointing? The Accuracy of Deictic Pointing in CVEs

Nelson Wong Univ of Saskatchewan, Canada

Download full text (pdf)>>
Related Papers>>


We investigate how well people can point and interpret the direction or another person’s pointing gesture.  Our results show that deixis can be successful in CVEs for many pointing situations.

Pointing in Computerized Virtual Environments –
Effective in CVEs depending on accuracy of pointing

Issues:
In WoW you can point w/ your avatar, but can only do fixed animations.
Second Life: point = object highlights, bubbles go from hand to object.  à this is called augmented pointing

Aug pointing is intrusive and complicated compared to natural pointing.  But it is useful.  Not used to show general directions, how to get to places (even though in real world we use pointing for such gestures)

Wong Interested in natural pointing … doesn’t effect the environment

Pointing Stages:

(1)     orientation: orient yourself so other person can see you and thing you r pointing at

(2)     preparation: eye contact or simple gestures so recipient knows you’re about to point

(3)     production: actual point gesture

(4)     holding: keep point held

Observations of Distant Pointing:
Need high degree of accuracy – can’t really point to objects in a group. 
Need to be in relative close proximity or general direction for out-of-view targets
(Accuracy requirement depends on situational circumstances)

Pointing Accuracy – Producing and Observing (Tested in real world room w/ laser pointer and in a desktop CVE using mouse to control an avatar arm, click to point)

(1)     How accurately can people point?

o        Real World more accurate pointing vs. in CVE

(2)     How well can people interpret pointing direction?

o        Less accurate than producing a pointing gesture

o        Diff btw CVE and RW is only 3cm – so we can interpret pointing directions in CVEs almost as well as we can in the real world

Found that when people stood 6cm away from a wall (vs further) that they were more accurate.

Natural pointing in CVEs can be successful

Depth cues can make pointing easier
Want to integrate augmented (good for high accuracy) and natural pointing (good for situ that don’t require high accuracy)
Natural point requires additional input mappings

CHI 2010: Understanding and Evaluating Cooperative Games

via Ashley @ CHI2010
Understanding and Evaluating Cooperative Games
Research sponsored by Bardel Entertainment, who is developing a VW for kids
Simon Fraser University
Related Paper>>
Very few successful VIDEO games (not facebook games)
Build as cooperation as after thought

What cooperative patterns work and what don’t?

14 games w / coop patterns 4 kids
e.g.: Harry potter and goblet of fire, lego star wars, wall e, kung fu panda, rock band, little big planet, kameo, etc.

Principles of cooperative design (Rocha et al 2008):

• Complementarity between character roles
• Synergies btw abilities (allow one character to help the other)
• Abilities that can only be used on another player
• Shared goals – forces player to cooperate together thru synchronized goals
• Special rules to allow collaboration (specific constraints on how actions affect friendly players)
• Camera:
• Split
• Static
• Dynamic with team
• Two characters Interacting with same object
• Shared puzzles
• Shared character (lego star wars – two players can share character between them)

Mario Galaxy:
Limited resources – number of stars collected in shared resource
Shared goal – goal for both players is to gather certain amt of stars

8 – 12 year olds target (tested 6 – 16 y.o.s) – video tape playing + post play interviews

Performance metrics:

• Laughter or excitement together
• Worked out strategies planned strategies, succeeded
• Helping by controlling vs telling
• When did they wait for ea other
• When did they get in ea other’s way

Laughter:
Lego Star Wars: got most laughter; little big planet 2^nd most
Causes for increased laughter: narrative, funny character moments, shared goals btw players

Worked out strategies:
Lego SW b/c sharing puzzles together within a game… shared goals and complementarity betw characters

Helping each other:
Kameo, then LSW – action adventure games
Kameo is 3d… it was hard for younger kids, so a lot of helping from peers
Shared goals, synergies between goals

Wait for each other:
LSW, Kameo
Causes: shared puzzles, shared goals, camera (in LSW, all characters have to be together before you proceed to next room – have to wait for everyone and work together to move on)

Got in each other’s way:
LSW b/c of camera – condensing all characters in one space, tend to get in each other’s way

Conclusions:
Camera = really important – interesting pattern affecting cooperation

CHI 2010: Motivating Players in Physical Activity Games

via Ashley @ CHI2010
physical activity motivating games: virtual rewards for real activity
Problem: too much sedentary activity, which is often addictive and self-reinforcing
Solution: incorporate physical activity into normally sedentary activity (new tech = “play mate”)

Literature:

• Campbell, ngo, fogarty “game design principles in every fitness applications”
• Consolvo, everitt, smith, landay “design req for technologies that encourage physical activity”
• Fujiji, kazakos, puri, buddharaju, pavlidis, Levine: “NEAT-o games: blending physical activity and fun in the daily routine” ACM Computers and Ent 2008

Bodily game interfaces:
Dance dance revolution
Wii
Natal

Motivating factors:
Virtual rewards for real activity

Neverball – open source software. Navigate ball to end of maze in x amt of time
Active version:

• Virtual opponent and/or shortened level times
• Physical activity gains extra time
• 3d accelerometer on child’s body via wireless transmission
• Game can be paused

Tested 9 – 12 year olds:

• Shortened time to play = kids jumped much more
• Shortened time + playing against virtual opponent = increased physical activity
• Physical activity did not change kids’ opinion of enjoyment
• But they played it for longer and were more likely to purchase games / spend more money on game purchases
• Girls jumped more than boys – statistically significant difference

CHI 2010: Intimacy in World of Warcraft

via Ashley @ CHI2010


The Rogue in the Lovely Black Dress: Intimacy in World of Warcraft
Jeffrey Bardzell, Indiana University
Read Full Paper >>
Recall + describe a specific incident in which you experience what you would call an intimate experience in a virtual world

(Digra – digital games research association)

Four intimacy themes – common patterns and features in the responses

(1)     intimacy is often located across real and VWs and not in one or the other (across the two – mixed reality phenomenon)

WoW à Facebook or Google Talk à phone à real world (decreasing mediated interaction)

(2)     intimacy emerges from mundane, rather than extraordinary experience

Play feels like work b/c you’re fulfilling quests (e.g. farming) … more likely to socialize with friends because it’s so boring

Intimacy often occurs in poignant moment that breaks thru the mundane

WoW successful because it is disengaging – end of a long day, don’t want to face big boss

Mundane à surprise à new social bond à new mundane

(3) intimacy involves reciprocity (or exchange)

market exchange reciprocity (market value)

vs

reciprocity exchange – exchanged gifts of hard to measure and unequal value because of exchange, become friends (exchange vulnerability and empathy)

(4)     intimacy is exp in and articulated with temporal categories and concepts

2 rhetorical strategies of describing intimacy: (defined temporally)
a) episode – single event, exploring it in detail
b) history – narrative that sketches intimacy across many individual episodes or periods of time

Q+As

add’l graphic dimension of 3d offers add’l expressive opportunities / people choose more graphical emotes

CHI 2010: Messy Futures: Culture, Technology and Research

Messy Futures: Culture, Technology and Research - via Ashley @ Chi2010

Genevieve Bell, Intel Dir of User Experience

Real consumers = mess + clutter. Devices compete for attention.

What does future hold?  Books will be legacy artifact (past, present, future)

Shifts: demographic, technical, practice

Demographic Shifts 5 – 10 years change landscape

(1)     Changing nature of places we live. 2025: 75% will be living in cities. Smaller houses, high density occupation, 2/3s have shared walls – raises issues for wireless networking.

(2)     Diminishing family size

(3)     Asian population growth – by 2020 half will be baby boomers

(4)     Populations aging, shifting where wealth is.

Technical Shifts

(1)     Only 20% of Internet users are American.  This means a great number of non-Americans are bringing new ways to view information, think about things

(2)     Consumers more likely to surf certain sites while watching TV – e.g. Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Yahoo Mail, YouTube, MSN Windows Live

Rateyournetworkdiagram.com
(3) Increased network complexity – convergence didn’t happen; there is not one device to rule them all.  How can HCI help users manage complexity?

New anxieties:

(1)     privacy … now about: what you’re really doing e.g. devices talk to each other + auto-populate your facebook and twitter status updates with what you’re watching on TV.  Anxiety is about reputation, image, authenticity, trust.

New set of socio-technical anxieties emerging

Implications for research:
a new set of research directions, objects of study, possible questions and theoretical tools
areas where humans are deeply engaged, strong role for technology, areas to explore:

(1)     religion continues to be one of the single most important things in people’s lives. 80% of people n planet are religious (text wailing wall in Jerusalem, “secret archives” button on Vatican website, people giving up text for Lent, debate in NY – what is relationship between iphones and Sabbath? Using mobile phones to orient yourself toward mecca

(2)     government. Challenges about internet time vs. government time (response time to emails, for example)

(3)     Sex. Proliferation of images. What does it mean for people’s notions about self?

(4)     Sports. Driver of new technology options (e.g. Americans buying HD TVs), now: new video capture, 3D.  Fantasy sports online. No one is writing about it.

(5)     Manners + etiquette about technology.  Changing notions about where tech should be used, by whom (e.g. not using phone in church, but ok to use in bathroom). Choices in vacation time (e.g. go somewhere where it’s a dead zone and you can’t get connected).  Linguistically we don’t have the language to talk about it – lang only addresses what they are not doing (unconnected, on wrong side of digital divide). US = 20% aren’t online or online regularly.

(6)     Gender. One of most pop apps for men is called PMS buddy (track up to 5 women simultaneously – these are the times to avoid these women!!). Pop apps for women – calendars for “aunt flo”. Profoundly different ideas at play at same phenomena for diff audiences.  Talk about App store – how would we read this thru a critical lens (or a feminist lens, etc.)

What are our research agendas? Co-interlocutors? Challenges? Barriers? And obligations?

Chi2010 - Skinput: Appropriating the Body as an Input Surface

Link via Ashley @ Chi2010 (ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems)

http://www.chrisharrison.net/projects/skinput/