注目の論文一覧

Textile interfaces enable designers to integrate unobtrusive media and smart home controls into furniture such as sofas. While the technical aspects of such controllers have been the subject of numerous research projects, the physical form factor of these controls has received little attention so far. This work investigates how general design properties, such as overall slider shape, raised vs. recessed sliders, and number and layout of tick marks, affect users' preferences and performance. Our first user study identified a preference for certain design combinations, such as recessed, closed-shaped sliders. Our second user study included performance measurements on variations of the preferred designs from study 1, and took a closer look at tick marks. Tick marks supported orientation better than slider shape. Sliders with at least three tick marks were preferred, and performed well. Non-uniform, equally distributed tick marks reduced the movements users needed to orient themselves on the slider.

Constructing olfactory interfaces on demand requires significant design proficiency and engineering effort. The absence of powerful and convenient tools that reduced innovation complexity posed obstacles for future research in the area. To address this problem, we proposed O&O, a modular olfactory interface DIY toolkit. The toolkit consists of: (1) a scent generation kit, a set of electronics and accessories that supported three common scent vaporization techniques; (2) a module construction kit, a set of primitive cardboard modules for assembling permutable functional structures; (3) a design manual, a step-by-step design thinking framework that directs the decision-making and prototyping process. We organized a formal workshop with 19 participants and four solo DIY trials to evaluate the capability of the toolkit, the overall user engagement, the creations in both sessions, and the iterative suggestions. Finally, design implications and future opportunities were discussed for further research.

Prior work has demonstrated augmented reality's benefits to education, but current tools are difficult to integrate with traditional instructional methods. We present Paper Trail, an immersive authoring system designed to explore how to enable instructors to create AR educational experiences, leaving paper at the core of the interaction and enhancing it with various forms of digital media, animations for dynamic illustrations, and clipping masks to guide learning. To inform the system design, we developed five scenarios exploring the benefits that hand-held and head-worn AR can bring to STEM instruction and developed a design space of AR interactions enhancing paper based on these scenarios and prior work. Using the example of an AR physics handout, we assessed the system's potential with PhD-level instructors and its usability with XR design experts. In an elicitation study with high-school teachers, we study how Paper Trail could be used and extended to enable flexible use cases across various domains. We discuss benefits of immersive paper for supporting diverse student needs and challenges for making effective use of AR for learning.

FabricatINK explores the personal fabrication of irregularly-shaped low-power displays using electronic ink (E ink). E ink is a programmable bicolour material used in traditional form-factors such as E readers. It has potential for more versatile use within the scope of personal fabrication of custom-shaped displays, and it has the promise to be the pre-eminent material choice for this purpose. We appraise technical literature to identify properties of E ink, suited to fabrication. We identify a key roadblock, universal access to E ink as a material, and we deliver a method to circumvent this by upcycling broken electronics. We subsequently present a novel fabrication method for irregularly-shaped E ink displays. We demonstrate our fabrication process and E ink's versatility through ten prototypes showing different applications and use cases. By addressing E ink as a material for display fabrication, we uncover the potential for users to create custom-shaped truly bistable displays.

Despite an abundance of carefully-crafted tutorials, trial-and-error remains many people’s preferred way to learn complex software. Yet, approaches to facilitate trial-and-error (such as tooltips) have evolved very little since the 1980s. While existing mechanisms work well for simple software, they scale poorly to large feature-rich applications. In this paper, we explore new techniques to support trial-and-error in complex applications. We identify key benefits and challenges of trial-and-error, and introduce a framework with a conceptual model and design space. Using this framework, we developed three techniques: ToolTrack to keep track of trial-and-error progress; ToolTrip to go beyond trial-and-error of single commands by highlighting related commands that are frequently used together; and ToolTaste to quickly and safely try commands. We demonstrate how these techniques facilitate trial-and-error, as illustrated through a proof-of-concept implementation in the CAD software Fusion 360. We conclude by discussing possible scenarios and outline directions for future research on trial-and-error.

With the rapid development of creativity support tools, creative practitioners (e.g., designers, artists, architects) have to constantly explore and adopt new tools into their practice. While HCI research has focused on developing novel creativity support tools, little is known about creative practitioner's values when exploring and adopting these tools. We collect and analyze 23 videos, 13 interviews, and 105 survey responses of creative practitioners reflecting on their values to derive a value framework. We find that practitioners value the tools' functionality, integration into their current workflow, performance, user interface and experience, learning support, costs and emotional connection, in that order. They largely discover tools through personal recommendations. To help unify and encourage reflection from the wider community of CST stakeholders (e.g., systems creators, researchers, marketers, educators), we situate the framework within existing research on systems, creativity support tools and technology adoption.

How-to videos are often shot using camera angles that may not be optimal for learning motor tasks, with a prevalent use of third-person perspective. We present \textit{immersivePOV}, an approach to film how-to videos from an immersive first-person perspective using a head-mounted 360° action camera. immersivePOV how-to videos can be viewed in a Virtual Reality headset, giving the viewer an eye-level viewpoint with three Degrees of Freedom. We evaluated our approach with two everyday motor tasks against a baseline first-person perspective and a third-person perspective. In a between-subjects study, participants were assigned to watch the task videos and then replicate the tasks. Results suggest that immersivePOV reduced perceived cognitive load and facilitated task learning. We discuss how immersivePOV can also streamline the video production process for content creators. Altogether, we conclude that immersivePOV is an effective approach to film how-to videos for learners and content creators alike.

Dynamically drawn content (e.g., handwritten text) in learning videos is believed to improve users’ engagement and learning over static powerpoint-based ones. However, evidence from existing literature is inconclusive. With the emergence of Optical Head-Mounted Displays (OHMDs), recent work has shown that video learning can be adapted for on-the-go scenarios. To better understand the role of dynamic drawing, we decoupled dynamically drawn text into two factors (font style and motion of appearance) and studied their impact on learning performance under two usage scenarios (while seated with desktop and walking with OHMD). We found that although letter-traced text was more engaging for some users, most preferred learning with typeface text that displayed the entire word at once and achieved better recall (46.7% higher), regardless of the usage scenarios. Insights learned from the studies can better inform designers on how to present text in videos for ubiquitous access.

Making time estimates, such as how long a given task might take, frequently leads to inaccurate predictions because of an optimistic bias. Previous attempts to alleviate this bias, including decomposing the task into smaller components and listing potential surprises, have not shown any major improvement. This article builds on the premise that these procedures may have failed because they involve compound probabilities and mixture distributions which are difficult to compute in one's head. We hypothesize that predictive visualizations of such distributions would facilitate the estimation of task durations. We conducted a crowdsourced study in which 145 participants provided different estimates of overall and sub-task durations and we used these to generate predictive visualizations of the resulting mixture distributions. We compared participants' initial estimates with their updated ones and found compelling evidence that predictive visualizations encourage less optimistic estimates.

Optical see-through Head-Mounted Displays (OST HMDs, OHMDs) are known to facilitate situational awareness while accessing secondary information. However, information displayed on OHMDs can cause attention shifts, which distract users from natural social interactions. We hypothesize that information displayed in paracentral and near-peripheral vision can be better perceived while the user is maintaining eye contact during face-to-face conversations. Leveraging this idea, we designed a circular progress bar to provide progress updates in paracentral and near-peripheral vision. We compared it with textual and linear progress bars under two conversation settings: a simulated one with a digital conversation partner and a realistic one with a real partner. Results show that a circular progress bar can effectively reduce notification distractions without losing eye contact and is more preferred by users. Our findings highlight the potential of utilizing the paracentral and near-peripheral vision for secondary information presentation on OHMDs.

Microtransactions have become a major monetisation model in digital games, shaping their design, impacting their player experience, and raising ethical concerns. Research in this area has chiefly focused on loot boxes. This begs the question whether other microtransactions might actually be more relevant and problematic for players. We therefore conducted a content analysis of negative player reviews (n=801) of top-grossing mobile and desktop games to determine which problematic microtransactions are most prevalent and salient for players. We found that problematic microtransactions with mobile games featuring more frequent and different techniques compared to desktop games. Across both, players minded issues related to fairness, transparency, and degraded user experience, supporting prior theoretical work, and importantly take issue with monetisation-driven design as such. We identify future research needs on why microtransactions in particular spark this critique, and which player communities it may be more or less representative of.

Guided by the 12 principles of animation, stylization is a core 2D animation feature but has been utilized mainly by experienced animators. Although there are tools for stylizing 2D animations, creating stylized 3D animations remains a challenging problem due to the additional spatial dimension and the need for responsive actions like contact and collision. We propose a system that helps users create stylized casual 3D animations. A layered authoring interface is employed to balance between ease of use and expressiveness. Our surface level UI is a timeline sequencer that lets users add preset stylization effects such as squash and stretch and follow through to plain motions. Users can adjust spatial and temporal parameters to fine-tune these stylizations. These edits are propagated to our node-graph-based second level UI, in which the users can create custom stylizations after they are comfortable with the surface level UI. Our system also enables the stylization of interactions among multiple objects like force, energy, and collision. A pilot user study has shown that our fluid layered UI design allows for both ease of use and expressiveness better than existing tools.

We investigate performance characteristics when switching between four pointing methods: absolute touch, absolute pen, relative mouse, and relative trackpad. The established "subtraction method" protocol used in mode-switching studies is extended to test pairs of methods and accommodate switch direction, multiple baselines, and controlling relative cursor position. A first experiment examines method switching on and around the horizontal surface of a tablet. Results find switching between pen and touch is fastest, and switching between relative and absolute methods incurs additional time penalty. A second experiment expands the investigation to an emerging foldable all-screen laptop form factor where switching also occurs on an angled surface and along a smoothly curved hinge. Results find switching between trackpad and touch is fastest, with all switching times generally higher. Our work contributes missing empirical evidence for switching performance using modern input methods, and our results can inform interaction design for current and emerging device form factors.

Most video-based learning content is designed for desktops without considering mobile environments. We (1) investigate the gap between mobile learners’ challenges and video engineers’ considerations using mixed methods and (2) provide design guidelines for creating mobile-friendly MOOC videos. To uncover learners’ challenges, we conducted a survey (n=134) and interviews (n=21), and evaluated the mobile adequacy of current MOOCs by analyzing 41,722 video frames from 101 video lectures. Interview results revealed low readability and situationally-induced impairments as major challenges. The content analysis showed a low guideline compliance rate for key design factors. We then interviewed 11 video production engineers to investigate design factors they mainly consider. The engineers mainly focus on the size and amount of content while lacking consideration for color, complex images, and situationally-induced impairments. Finally, we present and validate guidelines for designing mobile-friendly MOOCs, such as providing adaptive and customizable visual design and context-aware accessibility support.

Electrotactile stimulation is a novel form of haptic feedback. There is little work investigating its basic design parameters and how they create effective tactile cues. This paper describes two experiments that extend our knowledge of two key parameters. The first investigated the combination of pulse width and amplitude Intensity on sensations of urgency, annoyance, valence and arousal. Results showed significant effects: increasing Intensity caused higher ratings of urgency, annoyance and arousal but reduced valence. We established clear levels for differentiating each sensation. A second study then investigated Intensity and Pulse Frequency to find out how many distinguishable levels could be perceived. Results showed that both Intensity and Pulse Frequency significantly affected perception, with four distinguishable levels of Intensity and two of Pulse Frequency. These results add significant new knowledge about the parameter space of electrotactile cue design and help designers select suitable properties to use when creating electrotactile cues.

We present the research area of personal dream informatics: studying the self-information systems that support dream engagement and communication between the dreaming self and the wakeful self. Through a survey study of 281 individuals primarily recruited from an online community dedicated to dreaming, we develop a dream-information systems view of dreaming and dream tracking as a type of self-information system. While dream-information systems are characterized by diverse tracking processes, motivations, and outcomes, they are universally constrained by the ephemeral dreamset - the short period of time between waking up and rapid memory loss of dream experiences. By developing a system dynamics model of dreaming we highlight feedback loops that serve as high leverage points for technology designers, and suggest a variety of design considerations for crafting technology that best supports dream recall, dream tracking, and dreamwork for nightmare relief and personal development.

Rendering instant and intense impact feedback on users’ hands, limbs and head to enhance realism in virtual reality (VR) has been proposed in previous works, but impact on the body is still less discussed. With the body’s large surface area to utilize, numerous impact patterns can be rendered in versatile VR applications,e.g., being shot, blasted, punched or slashed on body in VR games. Herein we propose ImpactVest to render spatio-temporal multilevel impact force feedback on body. By independently controlling nine impactors in a 3×3 layout using elastic force, impact is generated at different levels, positions and time sequences for versatile spatial and temporal combinations. We conducted a just-noticeable difference (JND) study to understand users’ impact level distinguishability on the body. A time interval threshold study was then performed to ascertain what time interval thresholds between two impact stimuli should be used to distinguish from simultaneous impact, a continuous impact stroke and two discrete impact stimuli. Based on the results, we conducted a VR experience study to verify that impact feedback from ImpactVest enhances VR realism.

The effective width method of Fitts' law can normalize speed-accuracy biases in 1D target pointing tasks. However, in graphical user interfaces, more meaningful target shapes are rectangular. To empirically determine the best way to normalize the subjective biases, we ran remote and crowdsourced user experiments with three speed-accuracy instructions. We propose to normalize the speed-accuracy biases by applying the effective sizes to existing Fitts' law formulations including width W and height H. We call this target-size adjustment the bivariate effective width method. We found that, overall, Accot and Zhai's weighted Euclidean model using the effective width and height independently showed the best fit to the data in which the three instruction conditions were mixed (i.e., the time data measured in all instructions were analyzed with a single regression expression). Our approach enables researchers to fairly compare two or more conditions (e.g., devices, input techniques, user groups) with the normalized throughputs.

In this paper, we explore how the physically embodied nature of robots can influence learning through non-verbal communication, such as gesturing. We take an embodied cognition perspective to examine student interactions with a NAO robot that uses gestures while reasoning about geometry conjectures. College aged students (N = 30) were randomly assigned to either a dynamic condition, where the robot uses dynamic gestures that represent and manipulate geometric shapes in the conjectures, or control condition, where the robot uses beat gestures that match the rhythm of speech. Students in the dynamic condition: (1) use more gestures when they reason about geometry conjectures, (2) look more at the robot as it speaks, (3) feel the robot is a better study partner and uses effective gestures, but (4) were not more successful in correctly reasoning about geometry conjectures. We discuss implications for socially supported and embodied learning with a physically present robot.

We present STRAIDE, a string-actuated interactive display environment that allows to explore the promising potential of shape-changing interfaces for casual visualizations. At the core, we envision a platform that spatially levitates elements to create dynamic visual shapes in space. We conceptualize this type of tangible mid-air display and discuss its multifaceted design dimensions. Through a design exploration, we realize a physical research platform with adjustable parameters and modular components. For conveniently designing and implementing novel applications, we provide developer tools ranging from graphical emulators to in-situ augmented reality representations. To demonstrate STRAIDE's reconfigurability, we further introduce three representative physical setups as a basis for situated applications including ambient notifications, personal smart home controls, and entertainment. They serve as a technical validation, lay the foundations for a discussion with developers that provided valuable insights, and encourage ideas for future usage of this type of appealing interactive installation.

We investigate instant-messaging (IM) users’ sense-making and practices around read-receipts: a feature of IM apps for supporting the awareness of turn-taking, i.e., whether a message recipient has read a message. Using a grounded-theory approach, we highlight the importance of five contextual factors – situational, relational, interactional, conversational, and personal – that shape the variety of IM users’ sense-making about read-receipts and strategies for utilizing them in different settings. This approach yields a 21-part typology comprising five types of senders’ speculation about why their messages with read-receipts have not been answered; eight types of recipients’ causes/reasons behind such non-response; and four types of senders’ and recipients’ subsequent strategies, respectively. Mismatches between senders’ speculations about un-responded-to read-receipted messages (URRMs) and recipients’ self-reported explanations are also discussed as sources of communicative friction. The findings reveal that, beyond indicating turn-taking, read-receipts have been leveraged as a strategic tool for various purposes in interpersonal relations.

User acceptance is key for the successful uptake and use of health technologies, but also impacted by numerous factors not always easily accessible nor operationalised by designers in practice. This work seeks to facilitate the application of acceptance theory in design practice through the Technology Acceptance (TAC) toolkit: a novel theory-based design tool and method comprising 16 cards, 3 personas, 3 scenarios, a virtual think-space, and a website, which we evaluated through workshops conducted with 21 designers of health technologies. Findings showed that the toolkit revised and extended designers' knowledge of technology acceptance, fostered their appreciation, empathy and ethical values while designing for acceptance, and contributed towards shaping their future design practice. We discuss implications for considering user acceptance a dynamic, multi-stage process in design practice, and better supporting designers in imagining distant acceptance challenges. Finally, we examine the generative value of the TAC toolkit and its possible future evolution.

``Time spent on platform'' is a widely used measure in many studies examining social media use and well-being, yet the current literature presents unresolved findings about the relationship between time on platform and well-being. In this paper, we consider the moderating effect of people’s mindsets about social media — whether they think a platform is good or bad for themselves and for society more generally. Combining survey responses from 29,284 participants in 15 countries with server-logged data of Facebook use, we found that when people thought that Facebook was good for them and for society, time spent on the platform was not significantly associated with well-being. Conversely, when they thought Facebook was bad, greater time spent was associated with lower well-being. On average, there was a small, negative correlation between time spent and well-being and the causal direction is not known. Beliefs had a stronger moderating relationship when time-spent measures were self-reported rather than coming from server logs. We discuss potential mechanisms for these results and implications for future research on well-being and social media use.

By sensing how a user is holding a smartphone, adaptive user interfaces are possible such as those that automatically switch the displayed content and position of graphical user interface (GUI) components following how the phone is being held. We propose ReflecTouch, a novel method for detecting how a smartphone is being held by capturing images of the smartphone screen reflected on the cornea with a built-in front camera. In these images, the areas where the user places their fingers on the screen appear as shadows, which makes it possible to estimate the grasp posture. Since most smartphones have a front camera, this method can be used regardless of the device model; in addition, no additional sensor or hardware is required. We conducted data collection experiments to verify the classification accuracy of the proposed method for six different grasp postures, and the accuracy was 85%.

From zooming on smartphones and mid-air gestures to deformable user interfaces, thumb-index pinching grips are used in many interaction techniques. However, there is still a lack of systematic understanding of how the accuracy and efficiency of such grips are affected by various factors such as counterforce, grip span, and grip direction. Therefore, in this paper, we contribute an evaluation (N = 18) of thumb-index pinching performance in a visual targeting task using scales up to 75 items. As part of our findings, we conclude that the pinching interaction between the thumb and index finger is a promising modality also for one-dimensional input on higher scales. Furthermore, we discuss and outline implications for future user interfaces that benefit from pinching as an additional and complementary interaction modality.

Any active entity that shares space with people is interpreted as a social actor. Based on this notion, we explore how robots that integrate functional utility with a social role and character can integrate meaningfully into daily practice. Informed by interviews and observations, we designed a zoomorphic floor cleaning robot which playfully interacts with care home residents affected by dementia. A field study shows that playful interaction can facilitate the introduction of utilitarian robots in care homes, being nonthreatening and easy to make sense of. Residents previously reacted with distress to a Roomba robot, but were now amused by and played with our cartoonish cat robot or simply tolerated its presence. They showed awareness of the machine-nature of the robot, even while engaging in pretend-play. A playful approach to the design of functional robots can thus explicitly conceptualize such robots as social actors in their context of use.

From creating input devices to rendering tangible information, the field of HCI is interested in using kinematic mechanisms to create human-computer interfaces. Yet, due to fabrication and design challenges, it is often difficult to create kinematic devices that are compact and have multiple reconfigurable motional degrees of freedom (DOFs) depending on the interaction scenarios. In this work, we combine compliant mechanisms (CMs) with tensioning cables to create dynamically reconfigurable kinematic mechanisms. The devices’ kinematics (DOFs) is enabled and determined by the layout of bendable rods. The additional cables function as on-demand motion constraints that can dynamically lock or unlock the mechanism’s DOFs as they are tightened or loosened. We provide algorithms and a design tool prototype to help users design such kinematic devices. We also demonstrate various HCI use cases including a kinematic haptic display, a haptic proxy, and a multimodal input device.

Structured note-taking forms such as sketchnoting, self-tracking journals, and bullet journaling go beyond immediate capture of information scraps. Instead, hand-drawn pride-in-craftmanship increases perceived value for sharing and display. But hand-crafting lists, tables, and calendars is tedious and repetitive. To support these practices digitally, Style Blink (“Style-Blocks+Ink”) explores handcrafted styling as a first-class object. Style-blocks encapsulate digital ink, enabling people to craft, modify, and reuse embellishments and decorations for larger structures, and apply custom layouts. For example, we provide interaction instruments that style ink for personal expression, inking palettes that afford creative experimentation, fillable pens that can be “loaded” with commands and actions to replace menu selections, techniques to customize inked structures post-creation by modifying the underlying handcrafted style-blocks and to re-layout the overall structure to match users' preferred template. In effect, any ink stroke, notation, or sketch can be encapsulated as a style-object and re-purposed as a tool. Feedback from 13 users show the potential of style adaptation and re-use in individual sketching practices.

Data visualizations are created and shared on the web at an unprecedented speed, raising new needs and questions for processing and analyzing visualizations after they have been generated and digitized. However, existing formalisms focus on operating on a single visualization instead of multiple visualizations, making it challenging to perform analysis tasks such as sorting and clustering visualizations. Through a systematic analysis of previous work, we abstract visualization-related tasks into mathematical operators such as union and propose a design space of visualization operations. We realize the design by developing ComputableViz, a library that supports operations on multiple visualization specifications. To demonstrate its usefulness and extensibility, we present multiple usage scenarios concerning processing and analyzing visualization, such as generating visualization embeddings and automatically making visualizations accessible. We conclude by discussing research opportunities and challenges for managing and exploiting the massive visualizations on the web.

In recent years, actuators that handle fluids such as gases and liquids have been attracting attention for their applications in soft robots and shape-changing interfaces. In the field of HCI, there have been various inflatable prototyping tools that utilize air control, however, very few tools for liquid control have been developed. In this study, we propose HydroMod, new constructive modules that can easily generate liquid flow and programmatically control liquid flow, with the aim of lowering the barrier to entry for prototyping with liquids. HydroMod consists of palm-sized small modules, which can generate liquid flow with the electrohydrodynamics (EHD) phenomenon by simply connecting the modules. Moreover, users can configure and control the flow path by simply recombining the modules. In this paper, we propose the design of the modules, evaluate the performance of HydroMod as a fluid system, and also show the possible application scenarios of fluid prototyping using this system.

This paper contributes to a taxonomy of augmented reality and robotics based on a survey of 460 research papers. Augmented and mixed reality (AR/MR) have emerged as a new way to enhance human-robot interaction (HRI) and robotic interfaces (e.g., actuated and shape-changing interfaces). Recently, an increasing number of studies in HCI, HRI, and robotics have demonstrated how AR enables better interactions between people and robots. However, often research remains focused on individual explorations and key design strategies, and research questions are rarely analyzed systematically. In this paper, we synthesize and categorize this research field in the following dimensions: 1) approaches to augmenting reality; 2) characteristics of robots; 3) purposes and benefits; 4) classification of presented information; 5) design components and strategies for visual augmentation; 6) interaction techniques and modalities; 7) application domains; and 8) evaluation strategies. We formulate key challenges and opportunities to guide and inform future research in AR and robotics.

Visuo-haptic illusions are a method to expand proxy-based interactions in VR by introducing unnoticeable discrepancies between the virtual and real-world. Yet, how different design variables affect the illusions with proxies is still unclear. To unpack a subset of variables, we conducted two user studies with 48 participants to explore the impact of (1) different grasping types and movement trajectories, and (2) different grasping types and object masses on the discrepancy which may be introduced. Our Bayes analysis suggests that grasping types and object masses (≤ 500 g) did not noticeably affect the discrepancy, but for movement trajectory, results were inconclusive. Further, we identified a significant difference between un-/restricted movement trajectories. Our data shows considerable differences in participants’ proprioceptive accuracy, which seem to correlate with their prior VR experience. Finally, we illustrate the impact of our key findings on the visuo-haptic illusion design process by showcasing a new design workflow.

As more individuals consider permanently working from home, the online labor market continues to grow as an alternative working environment. While the flexibility and autonomy of these online gigs attracts many workers, success depends critically upon self-management and workers' efficient allocation of scarce resources. To achieve this, freelancers may develop alternative work strategies, employing highly standardized schedules and communication patterns while taking on large work volumes, or engaging in smaller numbers of jobs whilst tailoring their activities to build relationships with individual employers. In this study, we consider this contrast in relation to worker communication patterns. We demonstrate the heterogeneous effects of standardization versus personalization across different stages of a project and examine the relative impact on job acquisition, project completion, and earnings. Our findings can inform the design of platforms and various worker support tools for the gig economy.

Social Media (SM) has shown that we adapt our communication and disclosure behaviors to available technological opportunities. Head-mounted Augmented Reality (AR) will soon allow to effortlessly display the information we disclosed not isolated from our physical presence (e.g., on a smartphone) but visually attached to the human body. In this work, we explore how the medium (AR vs. Smartphone), our role (being augmented vs. augmenting), and characteristics of information types (e.g., level of intimacy, self-disclosed vs. non-self-disclosed) impact the users' comfort when displaying personal information. Conducting an online survey (N=148), we found that AR technology and being augmented negatively impacted this comfort. Additionally, we report that AR mitigated the effects of information characteristics compared to those they had on smartphones. In light of our results, we discuss that information augmentation should be built on consent and openness, focusing more on the comfort of the augmented rather than the technological possibilities.

Soft actuators with integrated sensing have shown utility in a variety of applications such as assistive wearables, robotics, and interactive input devices. Despite their promise, these actuators can be difficult to both design and fabricate. As a solution, we present a workflow for computationally designing and digitally fabricating soft pneumatic actuators \emph{via} a machine knitting process. Machine knitting is attractive as a fabrication process because it is fast, digital (programmable), and provides access to a rich material library of functional yarns for specified mechanical behavior and integrated sensing. Our method uses elastic stitches to construct non-homogeneous knitting structures, which program the bending of actuators when inflated. Our method also integrates pressure and swept frequency capacitive sensing structures using conductive yarns. The entire knitted structure is fabricated automatically in a single machine run. We further provide a computational design interface for the user to interactively preview actuators’ quasi-static shape when authoring elastic stitches. Our sensing-integrated actuators are cost-effective, easy to design, robust to large actuation, and require minimal manual post-processing. We demonstrate five use-cases of our actuators in relevant application settings.

The ability to manage emotions effectively is critical to healthy psychological and social development in youth. Prior work has focused on investigating the design of mental health technologies for this population, yet it is still unclear how to help them cope with emotionally difficult situations in-the-moment. In this paper, we aim to explore the appropriation, naturally emerging engagement patterns, and perceived psychological impact of an exemplar interactive tangible device intervention designed to provide in-situ support, when deployed with n=109 youth for 1.5 months. Our findings from semi-structured interviews and co-design workshops with a subset of participants (n=44 and n=25, respectively) suggest the potential of using technology-enabled objects to aid with down-regulation and self-compassion in moments of heightened emotion, to facilitate the practice of cognitive strategies, and to act as emotional companions. Lastly, we discuss design opportunities for integrating situated and embodied support in mental health interventions for youth.

Advanced technologies are increasingly enabling the creation of interactive devices with non-rectangular form-factors but it is currently unclear what alternative form-factors are desirable for end users. We contribute an understanding of the interplay between the rationale for the form factors of such devices and their interactive content through think aloud design sessions in which participants could mold devices as they wished using clay. We analysed their qualitative reflections on how the shapes affected interaction. Using thematic analysis, we identified shape features desirable on handheld freeform devices and discuss the particularity of three themes central to the choice of form factors: freeform dexterity, shape features discoverability and shape adaptability (to the task and context). In a second study following the same experimental set-up, we focused on the trade off between dexterity and discoverability and the relation to the concept of affordance. Our work reveals the shape features that impact the most the choice of grasps on freeform devices from which we derive design guidelines for the design of such devices.

Expertise-centric citizen science games (ECCSGs) can be powerful tools for crowdsourcing scientific knowledge production. However, to be effective these games must train their players on how to become experts, which is difficult in practice. In this study, we investigated the path to expertise and the barriers involved by interviewing players of three ECCSGs: Foldit, Eterna, and Eyewire. We then applied reflexive thematic analysis to generate themes of their experiences and produce a model of expertise and its barriers. We found expertise is constructed through a cycle of exploratory and social learning but prevented by instructional design issues. Moreover, exploration is slowed by a lack of polish to the game artifact, and social learning is disrupted by a lack of clear communication. Based on our analysis we make several recommendations for CSG developers, including: collaborating with professionals of required skill sets; providing social features and feedback systems; and improving scientific communication.

What do pedestrian crossings, ATMs, elevators and ticket machines have in common? These are just a few of the ubiquitous yet essential elements of public-space infrastructure that rely on physical buttons or touchscreens; common interactions that, until recently, were considered perfectly safe to perform. This work investigates how we might integrate touchless technologies into public-space infrastructure in order to minimise physical interaction with shared devices in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on an ethnographic exploration into how public utilities are being used, adapted or avoided, we developed and evaluated a suite of technology probes that can be either retro tted into, or replace, these services. In-situ community deployments of our probes demonstrate strong uptake and provide insight into how hands-free technologies can be adapted and utilised for the public domain; and, in turn, used to inform the future of walk-up-and use public technologies.

Now more than ever, people are using online platforms to communicate. Twitch, the foremost platform for live game streaming, offers many communication modalities. However, the platform lacks representation of social cues and signals of the audience experience, which are innately present in live events. To address this, we present a technology probe that captures the audience energy and response in a game streaming context. We designed a game and integrated a custom-communication modality—Commons Sense—in which the audience members' heart rates are sensed via webcam, averaged, and fed into a video game to affect sound, lighting, and difficulty. We conducted an `in-the-wild' evaluation with four Twitch streamers and their audience members (N=55) to understand how these groups interacted through Commons Sense. Audience members and streamers indicated high levels of enjoyment and engagement with Commons Sense, suggesting the potential of physiological interaction as a beneficial communication tool in live streaming.

The contemporary understanding of gender continues to highlight the complexity and variety of gender identities beyond a binary dichotomy regarding one’s biological sex assigned at birth. The emergence and popularity of various online social spaces also makes the digital presentation of gender even more sophisticated. In this paper, we use non-cisgender as an umbrella term to describe diverse gender identities that do not match people’s sex assigned at birth, including Transgender, Genderfluid, and Non-binary. We especially explore non-cisgender individuals’ identity practices and their challenges in novel social Virtual Reality (VR) spaces where they can present, express, and experiment their identity in ways that traditional online social spaces cannot provide. We provide one of the first empirical evidence of how social VR platforms may introduce new and novel phenomena and practices of approaching diverse gender identities online. We also contribute to re-conceptualizing technology-supported identity practices by highlighting the role of(re)discovering the physical body online and informing the design of the emerging metaverse for supporting diverse gender identities in the future.

Face orientation can often indicate users’ intended interaction target. In this paper, we propose FaceOri, a novel face tracking technique based on acoustic ranging using earphones. FaceOri can leverage the speaker on a commodity device to emit an ultrasonic chirp, which is picked up by the set of microphones on the user’s earphone, and then processed to calculate the distance from each microphone to the device. These measurements are used to derive the user’s face orientation and distance with respect to the device. We conduct a ground truth comparison and user study to evaluate FaceOri’s performance. The results show that the system can determine whether the user orients to the device at a 93.5% accuracy within a 1.5 meters range. Furthermore, FaceOri can continuously track the user’s head orientation with a median absolute error of 10.9 mm in the distance, 3.7◦ in yaw, and 5.8◦ in pitch. FaceOri can allow for convenient hands-free control of devices and produce more intelligent context-aware interaction.

In this paper, we present a novel screen system employing polarizers that allow switching of the projection surface to the front, rear, or both sides using only two projectors on one side. In this system, we propose a method that employs two projectors equipped with polarizers and a multi-layered screen comprising an anti-reflective plate, transparent screen, and wire grid polarizer. The multi-layered screen changes whether the projected image is shown on the front or rear side of the screen depending on the polarization direction of the incident light. Hence, the proposed method can project images on the front, rear, or both sides of the screen by projecting images from either or both projectors using polarizers. In addition, the proposed method can be easily deployed by simply attaching multiple optical films. We implement a prototype and confirm that the proposed method can selectively switch the projection surface.

Haptic Feedback is essential for lifelike Virtual Reality (VR) experiences. To provide a wide range of matching sensations of being touched or stroked, current approaches typically need large numbers of different physical textures. However, even advanced devices can only accommodate a limited number of textures to remain wearable. Therefore, a better understanding is necessary of how expectations elicited by different visualizations affect haptic perception, to achieve a balance between physical constraints and great variety of matching physical textures. In this work, we conducted an experiment (N=31) assessing how the perception of roughness is affected within VR. We designed a prototype for arm stroking and compared the effects of different visualizations on the perception of physical textures with distinct roughnesses. Additionally, we used the visualizations' real-world materials, no-haptics and vibrotactile feedback as baselines. As one result, we found that two levels of roughness can be sufficient to convey a realistic illusion.

We describe how sheets of metalized mylar can be cut and then “inflated” into complex 3D forms with electrostatic charge for use in digitally-controlled, shape-changing displays. This is achieved by placing and nesting various cuts, slits and holes such that mylar elements repel from one another to reach an equilibrium state. Importantly, our technique is compatible with industrial and hobbyist cutting processes, from die and laser cutting to handheld exacto-knives and scissors. Given that mylar film costs <$1 per m^2, we can create self-actuating 3D objects for just a few cents, opening new uses in low-cost consumer goods. We describe a design vocabulary, interactive simulation tool, fabrication guide, and proof-of-concept electrostatic actuation hardware. We detail our technique's performance metrics along with qualitative feedback from a design study. We present numerous examples generated using our pipeline to illustrate the rich creative potential of our method.

Mobile video-based learning attracts many learners with its mobility and ease of access. However, most lectures are designed for desktops. Our formative study reveals mobile learners' two major needs: more readable content and customizable video design. To support mobile-optimized learning, we present FitVid, a system that provides responsive and customizable video content. Our system consists of (1) an adaptation pipeline that reverse-engineers pixels to retrieve design elements (e.g., text, images) from videos, leveraging deep learning with a custom dataset, which powers (2) a UI that enables resizing, repositioning, and toggling in-video elements. The content adaptation improves the guideline compliance rate by 24% and 8% for word count and font size. The content evaluation study (n=198) shows that the adaptation significantly increases readability and user satisfaction. The user study (n=31) indicates that FitVid significantly improves learning experience, interactivity, and concentration. We discuss design implications for responsive and customizable video adaptation.

This paper presents Interactive Robotic Plastering (IRoP), a system enabling designers and skilled workers to engage intuitively with an in-situ robotic plastering process. The research combines three elements: interactive design tools, an augmented reality interface, and a robotic spraying system. Plastering is a complex process relying on tacit knowledge and craftsmanship, making it difficult to simulate and automate. However, our system utilizes a controller-based interaction system to enable diverse users to interactively create articulated plasterwork in-situ. A customizable computational toolset converts human intentions into robotic motions while respecting robotic and material constraints. To accomplish this, we developed both an interactive computational model to translate the data from a motion-tracking system into robotic trajectories using design and editing tools as well as an audio-visual guidance system for in-situ projection. We then conducted two user-studies of designers and skilled workers who used \emph{IRoP} to design and fabricate a full-scale demonstrator.

With recent developments in medical and psychiatric research surrounding pupillary response, cheap and accessible pupillometers could enable medical benefits from early neurological disease detection to measurements of cognitive load. In this paper, we introduce a novel smartphone-based pupillometer to allow for future development in clinical research surrounding at-home pupil measurements. Our solution utilizes a NIR front-facing camera for facial recognition paired with the RGB selfie camera to perform tracking of absolute pupil dilation with sub-millimeter accuracy. In comparison to a gold standard pupillometer during a pupillary light reflex test, the smartphone-based system achieves a median MAE of 0.27mm for absolute pupil dilation tracking and a median error of 3.52\% for pupil dilation change tracking. Additionally, we remotely deployed the system to older adults as part of a usability study that demonstrates promise for future smartphone deployments to remotely collect data in older, inexperienced adult users operating the system themselves.

The ability to consider a wide range of solutions to a design problem is a crucial skill for designers, and is a major differentiator between experts and novices. One reason for this is that novices are unaware of the full extent of the design space in which solutions are situated. To support novice designers with design space exploration, we introduce Mixplorer, a system that allows designers to take an initial design and mix it with other designs. Mixplorer differs from existing tools by supporting the exploration of ill-defined design spaces through social design space exploration. To evaluate Mixplorer, we conducted (1) an interview study with design instructors who reported that Mixplorer would "help to open the minds" of novice designers and (2) a controlled experiment with novices, finding that the design-mixing functionality of Mixplorer provided significantly better support for creativity, and that participants who mixed designs produced more novel designs.

Auditory interfaces increasingly support access to website content, through recent advances in voice interaction. Typically, however, these interfaces provide only limited audio styling, collapsing rich visual design into a static audio output style with a single synthesized voice. To explore the potential for more aesthetic and intuitive sound design for websites, we prompted 14 professional sound designers to create auditory website mockups and interviewed them about their designs and rationale. Our findings reveal their prioritized design considerations (aesthetics and emotion, user engagement, audio clarity, information dynamics, and interactivity), specific sound design ideas to support each consideration (e.g., replacing spoken labels with short, memorable audio expressions), and challenges with applying sound design practices to auditory websites. These findings provide promising direction for how to support designers in creating richer auditory website experiences.