University of SaskatchewanHARVEST
  • Login
  • Submit Your Work
  • About
    • About HARVEST
    • Guidelines
    • Browse
      • All of HARVEST
      • Communities & Collections
      • By Issue Date
      • Authors
      • Titles
      • Subjects
      • This Collection
      • By Issue Date
      • Authors
      • Titles
      • Subjects
    • My Account
      • Login
      JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.
      View Item 
      • HARVEST
      • Electronic Theses and Dissertations
      • Graduate Theses and Dissertations
      • View Item
      • HARVEST
      • Electronic Theses and Dissertations
      • Graduate Theses and Dissertations
      • View Item

      Group reaching over digital tabletops with digital arm embodiments

      Thumbnail
      View/Open
      DOUCETTE-DISSERTATION.pdf (14.78Mb)
      Date
      2014-09-08
      Author
      Doucette, Andre
      Type
      Thesis
      Degree Level
      Doctoral
      Metadata
      Show full item record
      Abstract
      In almost all collaborative tabletop tasks, groups require coordinated access to the shared objects on the table’s surface. The physical social norms of close-proximity interactions built up over years of interacting around other physical bodies cause people to avoid interfering with other people (e.g., avoiding grabbing the same object simultaneously). However, some digital tabletop situations require the use of indirect input (e.g., when using mice, and when supporting remote users). With indirect input, people are no longer physically embodied during their reaching gestures, so most systems provide digital embodiments – visual representations of each person – to provide feedback to both the person who is reaching and to the other group members. Tabletop arm embodiments have been shown to better support group interactions than simple visual designs, providing awareness of actions to the group. However, researchers and digital tabletop designers know little of how the design of digital arm embodiments affects the fundamental group tabletop interaction of reaching for objects. Therefore, in this thesis, we evaluate how people coordinate their interactions over digital tabletops when using different types of embodiments. Specifically, in a series of studies, we investigate how the visual design (what they look like) and interaction design (how they work) of digital arm embodiments affects a group’s coordinative behaviours in an open- ended parallel tabletop task. We evaluated visual factors of size, transparency, and realism (through pictures and videos of physical arms), as well as interaction factors of input and augmentations (feedback of interactions), in both a co-located and distributed environment. We found that the visual design had little effect on a group’s ability to coordinate access to shared tabletop items, that embodiment augmentations are useful to support group coordinative actions, and that there are large differences when the person is not physically co-present. Our results demonstrate an initial exploration into the design of digital arm embodiments, providing design guidelines for future researchers and designers to use when designing the next generation of shared digital spaces.
      Degree
      Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
      Department
      Computer Science
      Program
      Computer Science
      Supervisor
      Mandryk, Regan; Gutwin, Carl
      Committee
      Neufeld, Eric; Schneider, Kevin; Elias, Lorin; Vogel, Daniel
      Copyright Date
      August 2014
      URI
      http://hdl.handle.net/10388/ETD-2014-08-1641
      Subject
      Digital tabletops
      CSCW
      embodiments
      touch input
      Collections
      • Graduate Theses and Dissertations
      University of Saskatchewan

      University Library

      © University of Saskatchewan
      Contact Us | Disclaimer | Privacy