1. Media Spaces and Awareness

2. Readings Robert S. Fish, Robert E. Kraut, Robert W. Root, Ronald E. Rice, “Video as a technology for informal communication”, CACM, v36,n1, January 1993, pp. 48-61. http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=151237 Paul Dourish, Sara Bly, “Portholes: supporting awareness in a distributed work group”, Proceedings of CHI ’92, 1992, Monterey, pp. 541-547. http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=142982 Scott E. Hudson, Ian Smith, “Techniques for addressing fundamental privacy and disruption tradeoffs in awareness support systems”, Proceedings of CSCW ‘96, November 1996, pp.526-533. http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=240295

3. The death of distance Since television was introduced people have foreseen a day when technology would make it possible to “be there” without traveling (“telepresence”) “When two-way television is added to telephones, […] direct interaction will finally be available to those who are widely separated” - Erving Goffman, Behavior in Public Places, 1963

4. Supporting distributed work groups Work on video phones starting in the 60’s –Failure in the marketplace –Very expensive –Small fuzzy picture And the 70’s, and … “If only we could get the cost down and the quality up…”

5. The Technology is Now Here Video to/from a cell phone & “POTS line” with HDTV+ to the desktop, but... … Its still not the same as “being there” Why?

6. “Being there” is a very rich experience It turns out just a small picture (and sound) from the remote location isn’t enough –Video actually only gives a small increment over just audio (for direct communications) There are a lot of small / subtle things in collocated interaction that are lost –They turn out to be important –Social interactions rely on very subtle (and inherently ambiguous) cues

7. Media Spaces Use new media (audio and video transmission) to create a space for human-human interaction –Always on –You don’t “connect to” a space, you are “in it” Provide opportunities for engagement –Support social interactions –Informal and serendipitous interactions Support awareness –Existence and presence of colleagues –Work status (e.g., for communication coordination)

8. Early media space systems Started with PARC Media Space system –Group split between Palo Alto and Portland “How can we use technology to improve our interactions?” –Cameras and displays in offices & public spaces –Video crossbar switches (analog) Manual at first, later computer controlled Inherently a point-to-point technology –A / V link to branch site in Portland

10. Additional early systems RAVE (EuroPARC) William Gaver, Thomas Moran, Allan MacLean, Lennart Lövstrand, Paul Dourish, Kathleen Carter, William Buxton, “Realizing a video environment: EuroPARC's RAVE system”, Proceedings of CHI '92, 1992, Monterey, pp. 27-35. http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=142754 VideoWindow (Bellcore) Robert S. Fish, Robert E. Kraut, Barbara L. Chalfonte, “The VideoWindow system in informal communication”, Proceedings of CSCW '90, September 1990, pp. 1-11. http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=99335 Cruiser (Bellcore) Fish, et al. in readings CaveCat (U of Toronto) Marilyn M. Mantei, Ronald M. Baecker, Abigail J. Sellen, William A. S. Buxton, Thomas Milligan, Barry Wellman, “Experiences in the use of a media space”, Proceedings of CHI '91, March 1991, pp. 203-208. |http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=108888

11. RAVE (EuroPARC) UI reflecting intention and levels of engagement Functions –Background (public areas) –Glance 1-2 second peek into another’s space One-way with non-speech audio indicator (partial reciprocity) –Sweep (glances iterated over group) All or user settable group –Video phone & Office share Same action, but with different expressed intention Explicit “circle of friends” access control for privacy

12. RAVE (EuroPARC) Use of non-speech audio particularly interesting –Used for indicate of one-way (viewing) visits –Designed to give partial reciprocity Compare with Cruiser (next) –Came shortly before the visit –Well designed sounds Designed for minimal disruption Intuitive meaning Passed “do they turn it off” test (most don’t)

13. CaveCat (Toronto) Same low level infrastructure as RAVE –Same computer controlled analog switch Used 4-up display –Small group instead of simple point-to-point Highlighted a set of issues (see later) Unexpected affordances –“Mirror” was important –Monitoring office and contacts while away

14. VideoWindow (Bellcore) Oft-repeated “video wall” concept For another attempt at joining break rooms see for example: Gavin Jancke, Gina Danielle Venolia, Jonathan Grudin, J. J. Cadiz, Anoop Gupta, “Linking public spaces”, Proceedings of CHI '01, March 2001, pp. 530-537 http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=365352 –Try to join to spaces (break rooms) by placing camera and (very wide) video display against a wall –Other space looks like its “past the wall” –High quality media setup (special camera & display, etc.) Some success –Remote participants interacted (much like local) But not “being there” –Freq of interaction was ~2.5x less than collocated

15. Cruiser (Bellcore) Designed explicitly around social phenomena (Partially) modeled after walking down the hall –“Cruising” –Also “glance” function and video phone style interaction Privacy via reciprocity –In normal space: “if I can see you, you can see me” –Strong social conventions can be leveraged –Problem with reciprocity is disruption Cruising clearly failed –More like random telephone calls than walking down hall

16. Early systems were a qualified success Definitely not the same as face-to-face, but still useful –Provided opportunities for social engagement which did make a substantial difference Lots of lessons learned and issues uncovered

17. Some identified needs (a priori and from early systems) Informal communications support –Social interactions are inherently informal Need spontaneity and serendipity –A lot of work gets done “bumping into” people in the hall –Requires very lightweight interactions –Low intentionality  Need to support unstructured, complex, & equivocal communications (from Gaver et al, RAVE)

18. Awareness General (background / peripheral) information about collaborators makes interaction smoother Lots of very informal information –Existence, presence/absence –Activities, busyness, mood, habits, … Not (necessarily) task-oriented communications –but still makes tasks smoother –E.g., coordination of communications (when to interrupt) Each piece of information has low value, but valuable in the aggregate –Can’t incur much cost to get each piece  Leads to need for ambient displays

19. Awareness “Although seemingly the most invisible, the use of the media space for peripheral awareness was perhaps its most important use.” - Bly et al., “Media Spaces…”, CACM 1/93 http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=151235c

20. Some identified needs (a priori and from early systems) Smooth transition from informal to direct communications –Direct communications still critical for “getting work done” (task oriented actions) –Shared artifacts / documents very important for direct communications

21. Issues identified from early systems Media-related issues –View Field of view & resolution –Perceptual and privacy implications Anisotropic views –Loss of gaze awareness, social distance distortions Missing view control Missing movement parallax & stereopsis –Audio General quality and noise Loss of localization

22. Issues identified from early systems Control & Privacy –Most early systems (partial exception Bellcore) were used mostly by creators and their friends Highly motivated and self-selected Still privacy issues raised by all investigators –Camera is like working in front of a 1-way mirror Can’t tell who’s looking (loss of reciprocity) Like real world situations –E.g., the man lurking behind the bush loss of reciprocity breaks social convention  unease

23. Issues identified from early systems Four facets of privacy needs from Rave paper –Desire for control over who can see or hear us at any given time –Desire for knowledge of when someone is in fact seeing or hearing us –Desire to know the intention behind the connection –The desire to avoid connections being intrusions on our work Knowledge (& generally all reciprocity solutions)  Intrusions / Disruption

24. Issues identified from early systems Other social aspects –Missing cues for public / private nature of space –Missing cues for approach & negotiation Social interaction prerequisites (from VideoWindow paper) –Concentration of suitable partners –Co-Presence Opportunity to engage –Low personal cost –Visual channel Cues for engagement are primarily visual

25. Additional issues identified in later systems Distance related issues –Time zone issues –Cultural issues

26. Portholes Designed to connect PARC with EuroPARC –Forced technology change due to distance Shared digital network instead of dedicated analog –Partially piggybacked on older local infrastructure (cameras) Lower bandwidth Represents a turning point (2 nd generation) –Shift to broadcast instead of point-to-point –Much lower fidelity Cruder pictures (see also earlier PolyScope system at EuroPARC) Frame per minute instead of 10 per sec

27. Portholes A key lesson from portholes –Previous efforts indicated better fidelity needed Attempt to better replicate face-to-face reality –But Portholes worked as well, and in some cases better than higher fidelity systems  Aspects other than fidelity  E.g., dropped connection implied by point-to-point  Go beyond replicating face-to-face  Concentrate on unique properties of media spaces

28. Third generation systems Start to abstract away from direct communications (images) Go after individual issues separately (e.g., privacy and disruption) My favorites :-) –Shadow view privacy preserving video –Mumble filter audio –Synthetic group photo

29. Shadow View Technique “Just enough” information Rough outlines and movement Hide identity and other details

30. Video Clip...

32. Simple Implementation Capture a static reference frame Keep previous frame and do frame-to-frame differencing Compare (8x8) grid cells, if above threshold change, darken cell in reference image If no change, lighten cell

33. Does it Work? Small study (n=20) of alternate designs [Zhao CSCW ‘98]

34. Detection of Presence Is there someone there? (100%) 320x240 100% 100% 100% 100% (100%) 80x60 100% 100% 100% 95%  All provide pretty good info

35. Activity Identification Pick from 4 activities –Using machine, reading, talking on phone, two person meeting (100%) 320x240 94% 94% 91% 62% (98%) 80x60 94% 91% 97% 62%  Shadow view reduces but not removes

36. Person Identification Pick from 5 alternatives (guess = 20%) –Fairly similar images (white males,...) (92%) 320x240 78% 77% 62% 25% (80%) 80x60 80% 61% 54% 31%  Shadow view hides most of this

37. Another Study Published in CSCW ’00 Boyle,Edwards, & Greenberg, “The Effects of Filtered Video on Awareness and Privacy” Slightly different displays, but similar conclusions:  There is a compromise position that provides useful information, but preserves privacy

38. Other Settings for Different Effects

39. A Privacy Preserving, Low- Disturbance Shared Audio System Wanted awareness properties of an “open mic”, but with privacy and reduced disruption Created a non-speech rendition of speech sounds

40. Implementation Goals Want to leave eyes free for main task –Use audio Want to transmit –Who’s speaking –At least some prosody (e.g., is it a question?) Do not want to transmit –Content (privacy issues) –Any words (demand attention) –Anything else that demands attention

41. Implementation Create an “audio icon” for each speaker –Record ~30 sec speech sample –Remove silence –Repeatedly mix sample over itself at random offsets –Add noise –Low-pass filter –Normalize volume èA crowd of one (too loud)

42. Implementation (cont.) Apply live volume envelope to audio icon Result: –Preserves typical frequency distrib –Cadence information Speaker id but no words, and can fade into background

43. Evaluation of Speaker Recognition Pilot study (n=12): mixed results –Very bimodal response in subjects –Most (10/12) had solid (> 90%) recognition –But 2/12 close to guessing  Needs another round of design

44. Awareness of Groups: Synthetic Group Photos Group gestalt information Compact but meaningful (123 people) Differential use of space