PROGRAM

Friday 27th

09:00 – 10:30 Consumption: Evaluating User Experience (Chaired by Teresa Chambel, University of Lisbon)

1. TV Discovery & Enjoy: a New Approach to Help Users Finding the Right TV Program to Watch
   Jorge Abreu, Pedro Almeida, Bruno Teles
   This paper presents the development and evaluation cycle of an interactive television (iTV) prototype that aims to improve the way users discover and select their TV content, bearing in mind the cognitive model that the viewer typically uses in mindless zapping situations. The development of the iTV application was supported by a study of the habits and behaviours of TV viewers (namely the ones related to the referred cognitive process), followed by the specification of its conceptual model and features, interface mock-ups and its integration in the filtering engine of the iTV application. Additionally, an indexing and cataloging system interconnected with the filtering engine was designed. The developed prototype was evaluated by a group of users, with the results revealing to be very positive, both in in what relates with the interest on the application and its usability. In parallel to the development of the iTV application, a tablet version was conceptualized and evaluated with the aim of studying the suitability of the extension of the same conceptual model to a secondary screen approach.
2. MyChannel: Exploring City-Based Multimedia News Presentations on the Living Room TV
   Frank Bentley, Karolina Buchner, Joseph ‘Jofish’ Kaye
   We see the television as a primary device to connect view-ers with the information and people that matter most in their lives. Televisions, as central places where the family gath-ers, provide a unique location to elevate news and social updates that can connect family and friends across a dis-tance. Through creating the MyChannel service, a TV-based personalized news program, we have explored the types of content that work best in this format. We have also gained a detailed understanding of how television content can inspire feelings of connection and communication with friends and family at a distance through an 8-day in-home field evaluation. We describe the system and findings from our studies and close with a discussion on the future of per-sonalized television news.
3. Design and Evaluation of a Children’s Tablet Video Application
   David J. Wheatley
   Video consumption is moving from the TV to other, portable wireless platforms and from linear to on-demand viewing. This paper describes a series of user experience studies carried out to define the end user requirements for a targeted (1-10 yrs) childrens tablet video application. Other studies (not reported here) were also carried out to define parents needs for parental control functionality. The process consisted of three phases. Phase 1 consisted of an online survey of parents to understand childrens current viewing patterns and behaviors. This data, and secondary research, was then used to develop some initial design concepts for the application, and some key design and interaction elements were evaluated with children using paper & card mock-ups in phase 2. Children also evaluated an early application prototype in this second phase. Results suggested that three different levels of interface complexity would likely be necessary for the target age range. The third phase consisted of field trials of 3 prototype interfaces carried out with 25 children in 11 families. A primary objective of the field trials was to evaluate any impact on individual and family viewing patterns and behaviors. Results indicated that interface preferences broadly aligned with the expected age targets, and other major benefits of the application included the strong feelings of ownership, control and independence engendered in children which reduced the need for parental monitoring and direct involvement in content selection and device control. This paper focuses on the iterative design process and the impact of the application on content selection and control.
4. Mirror, Mirror, On The Wall: Collaborative Screen-Mirroring for Small Groups
   Mark McGill, John Williamson, Stephen A Brewster
   Screen mirroring has been available to consumers for some time, however if every mobile device in the room supports screen mirroring to the main display (e.g. a shared TV), this necessitates a mechanism for managing its use. As such, this paper investigates allowing users in small intimacy groups (friends, family etc.) to self-manage mirrored use of the display, through passing/taking/requesting the display from whomever is currently mirroring to it. We examine the collaborative benefits this scheme could provide for the home, compared to existing multi-device use and existing screen mirroring implementations. Results indicate shared screen mirroring improves perceived collaboration, decreases dominance, preserves independence and has a positive effect on a group’s activity awareness.

11:00 – 12:40 Tablets, Tables and Gestures

1. Storied Numbers: Supporting Media-Rich Data Storytelling for Television
   Susan J. Robinson, Graceline Williams, Aman Parnami, Jinhyun Kim, Emmett McGregor, Dana Chandler, Ali Mazalek
   The digital convergence of broadcast television, user-generated content from online and mobile sources, and interactive surfaces brings an opportunity for the development of platforms to support media-rich data storytelling for television audiences. In this paper, we report on a production model and system featuring a multi-touch interactive table with tangibles in the broadcast studio, on which performers use information visualizations to access and present media-rich content from viewers. The system uses content generated from a mobile application that couples close-ended survey items with rich media, such as video. The app is designed to increase opportunities for public debate on civic issues, but is also suitable for pure entertainment topics, such as sports and lifestyle. We present the results of an evaluation of our production model and the studio prototype in a lab setting with television production experts and on-air talent. Our results indicate that such systems must be designed with a flexible user profile in mind to accommodate performer capabilities and preferences, operational variations, program formats, and changing conventions in touch interaction.
2. Leap Gestures for TV: Insights from an Elicitation Study
   Radu-Daniel Vatavu, Ionut-Alexandru Zaiti
   We present insights from a gesture elicitation study in the context of interacting with TV, during which 18 participants contributed and rated the execution difficulty and recall likeliness of free-hand gestures for 21 distinct TV tasks. Our study complements previous work on gesture interaction design for the TV set with the first exploration of fine-grained resolution 3-D finger movements and hand pose gestures. We report lower agreement rates (.20) than previous gesture studies and 72.8% recall rate and 15.8% false positive recall, results that are explained by the complexity and variability of unconstrained finger gestures. Nevertheless, we report a large 82% preference for gesture commands versus TV remote controls. We also confirm previous findings, such as people’s preferences for related gestures for dichotomous tasks, and we report low agreement rates for abstract tasks, such as open browser or show channels list in our specific TV scenario. In the end, we contribute a set of design guidelines for practitioners interested in free-hand finger and hand pose gestures for interactive TV scenarios, and we release a dataset of 378 Leap Motion gesture records consisting in finger position, direction, and velocity coordinates for further studies in the community. We see this exploration as a first step toward designing low-effort high-resolution finger gestures and hand poses for lean-back interaction with the TV set.
3. Tablet, Gestures, Remote Control? Influence of Age on Performance and User Experience with iTV Applications
   Jan Bobeth, Johann Schrammel, Stephanie Deutsch, Michael Klein, Mario Drobics, Christina Hochleitner, Manfred Tscheligi
   Due to recent development of TVs in the direction of highly interactive multimedia platforms, interactive TV (iTV) applications gain popularity. In terms of control possibilities a variety of input modalities have become available, though effects on performance and user experience of different age groups when controlling different iTV applications remain unclear. We present an empirical investigation comparing three input modalities (tablet, freehand gestures, remote) for controlling two iTV applications (Photo Browser, Nutrition Tracker) used by older and younger adults. Results show that all three independent variables had significant influence on performance, while we did not find influence of age or application on user experience. Overall tablet input based on a mirrored TV screen showed the best performance and was preferred by both age groups. Older adults were overall slower and showed a particularly large performance gap with the remote in comparison to younger adults.
4. How to Lose Friends & Alienate People: Sharing Control of a Single-User TV System
   Mark McGill, John Williamson, Stephen A Brewster
   The single physical remote control, paired to a media system, is no longer necessarily the only (or indeed primary) mechanism of control, with new input modalities (e.g. gesture) and mechanisms (e.g. mobile devices) allowing anyone to contribute to the input and control. This paper investigates the potential for extending single-user interfaces in order to support multi-user use, as a means of utilizing new inputs without having to abandon the familiar interfaces, control management behaviours and mental models that users have established. A survey was conducted investigating existing behaviours for managing control in terms of prevalence and acceptability. These behaviours and potential new ones were then incorporated into a multi-user system where management of control was virtualized, using mobile devices for input. We found that behaviours derived from existing ones (e.g. passing/taking control) were at worst functionally equivalent to, and in some cases superior to, managing a single physical remote control. We suggest that sharing single-user TV systems implementing these behaviours offers a viable alternative to concurrent use TV systems.

14:00 – 15:00 Keynote Speaker

Dale Herigstad

Chief Interaction Officer, POSSIBLE
Co-Founder, SeeSpace

Now living in London, Dale Herigstad worked for 33 years in Hollywood as a Creative Director for motion graphics in TV and film. His mission has been to apply the principles of rich media design to interactive experiences. He began designing interfaces for Television more than 20 years ago, and was a founder of Schematic, which grew and merged with other digital agencies to form the global agency POSSIBLE.

Dale has developed a unique spatial approach to designing navigation systems for various screen contexts. The work blurs the line between Television, Games and Web, a concept he calls “New Television”. He was a part of the research team that conceptualised digital experiences in the film “Minority Report,” and is now leading development in gestural navigation for screens at a distance. Screens have always defined unique spaces, and with advancements in stereo 3D projection and new AR, information can occupy these spaces. Spatial context is becoming increasingly important in screen design. Virtual space and place are new frontiers of design.

Dale has an MFA from California Institute of the Arts, where in 1981 he taught the first course in Motion Graphics to be offered to designers in the United States. He served on the founding advisory board of the digital content direction at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, and also was an active participant in the development of advanced prototypes for Enhanced TV at the AFI for many years. Dale has 4 Emmy awards.

More recently, Dale co-founded the company SeeSpace, which will deliver their first product, inAiR, later this year. InAiR places Web content in the space in front of the Television.

15:30 – 16:00 FIContent Grand Challenge Presentation
16:00 – 16:30 Conference Closing Ceremony