Browsing by Author "Hancock, Mark"
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Item Metadata only 3D Tabletop Display Interaction(2010) Hancock, MarkItem Open Access 3d tabletop display interaction(2010) Hancock, Mark; Carpendale, SheelaghItem Open Access BubbleType: Enabling Text Entry within a Walk-Up Tabletop Installation(2008) Hinrichs, Uta; Schmidt, Holly; Isenberg, Tobias; Hancock, Mark; Carpendale, SheelaghWe address the issue of enabling text entry for walk-up-and-use interactive tabletop displays located in public spaces. Public tabletop installations are characterized by a diverse target user group, multiperson interaction, and the need for high approachability and intuitiveness. We first define the design constraints of text-entry methods for public tabletop installations such as clear affordances, audience expertise, support of direct-touch interaction, visual appearance, space requirements, multi-user support, and technical simplicity. We then describe an iterative design process that was informed by these constraints and led to the development of two stylus keyboard prototypes—BubbleQWERTY and BubbleCIRCLE—for use in interactive public tabletop installations.Item Metadata only Digital Tables for Collaborative Information Exploration(Springer, 2010) Isenberg, Petra; Hinrichs, Uta; Hancock, Mark; Carpendale, SheelaghThere is great potential for digital tabletop displays to be integrated in tomorrow’s work and learning environments, in which the exploration of information is a common task. In this chapter, we describe the stream of research that focuses on digital tabletop collaborative visualization environments. We focus on two types of interfaces: those for information exploration and data analysis in the context of workplaces, and those for more casual information exploration in public settings such as museums.Item Metadata only Exploring automation in digital tabletop board game(ACM, 2012) Wallace, James R.; Pape, Joseph; Chang, Yu-Ling Betty; McClelland, Phillip J.; Graham, T.C. Nicholas; Scott, Stacey D.; Hancock, MarkDigital tabletops present the opportunity to combine the social advantages of traditional tabletop games with the automation and streamlined gameplay of video games. However, it is unclear whether the addition of automation enhances or detracts from the game experience. A study was performed where groups played three versions of the cooperative board game Pandemic, with varying degrees of automation. The study revealed that while game automation can provide advantages to players, it can also negatively impact enjoyment, game state awareness, and flexibility in game play.Item Metadata only Gamifying behaviour that leads to learning(ACM, 2013) Watson, Diane; Hancock, Mark; Mandryk, Regan L.Many courses require self-study to succeed. This is especially true of online courses. However, self-study activities, such as reading the textbook and completing the associated workbook, are not motivating and do not contribute directly to grades. As a result many students do not complete these activities and this may lead to a lower understanding of the material and a lower overall grade in the class. In this paper we present the prototype of a casual game, Reading Garden, which encourages self-study through casual gameplay.Item Metadata only Improving Awareness of Automated Actions Using an Interactive Event Timeline(ACM, 2013) Chang, Y.-L. Betty; Mengual, Mylene; Parfett, Brian; Graham, T.C. Nicholas; Hancock, Mark; Scott, Stacey D.Digital tabletops provide an opportunity for automating complex tasks in collaborative domains involving planning and decision-making, such as strategic simulation in command and control. However, when automation leads to modification of the system's state, users may fail to understand how or why the state has changed, resulting in lower situation awareness and incorrect or suboptimal decisions. We present the design of an interactive event timeline that aims to improve situation awareness in tabletop systems that use automation. Our timeline enables exploration and analysis of automated system actions in a collaborative environment. We discuss two factors in the design of the timeline: the ownership of the timeline in multi-user situations and the location of the detailed visual feedback resulting from interaction with the timeline. We use a collaborative digital tabletop board game to illustrate this design concept.Item Open Access Interacting with Stroke-Based Rendering on a Wall Display(2007-10-19) Grubert, Jens; Hancock, Mark; Carpendale, Sheelagh; Tse, Edward; Isenberg, TobiasWe introduce two new interaction techniques for creating and interacting with non-photorealistic images using strokebased rendering. We provide bimanual control of a large interactive canvas through both remote pointing and direct touch. Remote pointing allows people to sit and interact at a distance with an overview of the entire display, while direct-touch interaction provides more precise control. We performed a user study to compare these two techniques in both a controlled setting with constrained tasks and an exploratory setting where participants created their own painting. We found that, although the direct-touch interaction outperformed remote pointing, participants had mixed preferences and did not consistently choose one or the other to create their own painting. Some participants also chose to switch between techniques to achieve different levels of precision and control for different tasks.Item Metadata only Investigating menu discoverability on a digital tabletop in a public setting(ACM, 2012) Seto, Mindy; Scott, Stacey; Hancock, MarkA common challenge to the design of digital tabletops for public settings is how to effectively invite and guide passersby--who often have no prior experience with such technology--to interact using unfamiliar interaction methods and interfaces. We characterize such enticement from the system interface as the system's discoverability. A particular challenge to modern surface interfaces is the discoverability of system functionality: does the system require gestures? are there system menus? if so, how are they invoked? This research focuses on the discoverability of system menus on digital tabletops designed for public settings. An observational study of menu invocation methods in a museum setting is reported. Study findings suggest that discernible and recognizable interface elements, such as buttons, supported by the use of animation, can effectively attract and guide the discovery of menus. Design recommendations for improving menu discoverability are also presented.Item Metadata only Perceptual grouping: selection assistance for digital sketching(ACM, 2013) Lindlbauer, David; Haller, Michael; Hancock, Mark; Scott, Stacey D.; Stuerzlinger, WolfgangModifying a digital sketch may require multiple selections before a particular editing tool can be applied. Especially on large interactive surfaces, such interactions can be fatiguing. Accordingly, we propose a method, called Suggero, to facilitate the selection process of digital ink. Suggero identifies groups of perceptually related drawing objects. These "perceptual groups" are used to suggest possible extensions in response to a person's initial selection. Two studies were conducted. First, a background study investigated participant's expectations of such a selection assistance tool. Then, an empirical study compared the effectiveness of Suggero with an existing manual technique. The results revealed that Suggero required fewer pen interactions and less pen movement, suggesting that Suggero minimizes fatigue during digital sketching.Item Metadata only Quantitative measurement of virtual vs. physical object embodiment through kinesthetic figural after effects(ACM, 2014) Alzayat, Ayman; Hancock, Mark; Nacenta, MiguelOver the past decade, multi-touch surfaces have become commonplace, with many researchers and practitioners describing the benefits of their natural, physical-like interactions. We present a pair of studies that empirically investigates the psychophysical effects of direct interaction with both physical and virtual artefacts. We use the phenomenon of Kinesthetic Figural After Effects-a change in understanding of the physical size of an object after a period of exposure to an object of different size. Our studies show that, while this effect is robustly reproducible when using physical artefacts, this same effect does not manifest when manipulating virtual artefacts on a direct, multi-touch tabletop display. We contribute quantitative evidence suggesting a psychophysical difference in our response to physical vs. virtual objects, and discuss future research directions to explore measurable phenomena to evaluate the presence of physical-like changes from virtual on-screen objects.Item Open Access The Simple Multi-touch Toolkit(2015-01-29) Hancock, Mark; Collins, Christopher; Cook, Zachary; Sikes, Kalev Kalda; Paluka, ErikDeveloping multi-touch applications can be difficult and tedious, especially for people without a programming background. The Simple Multi-touch Toolkit, a library for Processing and Java, unifies all the most common touch input devices, including TUIO and Windows Touch, and sports simple, easy to understand syntax. Accessible, yet powerful, it opens up the realm of touch to the inexperienced programmer, and makes coding multi-touch interactions much easier. For more information, http://vialab.science.uoit.ca/SMT/Item Open Access Speech-Filtered Bubble Ray: Improving Target Acquisition on Display Walls(2007-06-29) Tse, Edward; Hancock, Mark; Greenberg, SaulThe rapid development of large interactive wall displays has been accompanied by research on methods that allow people to interact with the display at a distance. The basic method for target acquisition is by ray casting a cursor from one s pointing finger or hand position; the problem is that selection is slow and errorprone with small targets. A better method is the bubble cursor that resizes the cursor s activation area to effectively enlarge the target size. The catch is that this technique s effectiveness depends on the proximity of surrounding targets: while beneficial in sparse spaces, it is less so when targets are densely packed together. Our method is the speech-filtered bubble ray that uses speech to transform a dense target space into a sparse one. Our strategy builds on what people already do: people pointing to distant objects in a physical workspace typically disambiguate their choice through speech. For example, a person could point to a stack of books and say the green one . Gesture indicates the approximate location for the search, and speech filters unrelated books from the search. Our technique works the same way; a person specifies a property of the desired object, and only the location of objects matching that property trigger the bubble size. In a controlled evaluation, people were faster and preferred using the speech-filtered bubble ray over the standard bubble ray and ray casting approach.Item Metadata only Supporting sandtray therapy on an interactive tabletop(ACM, 2010) Hancock, Mark; ten Cate, Thomas; Carpendale, Sheelagh; Isenberg, TobiasWe present the iterative design of a virtual sandtray application for a tabletop display. The purpose of our prototype is to support sandtray therapy, a form of art therapy typically used for younger clients. A significant aspect of this therapy is the insight gained by the therapist as they observe the client interact with the figurines they use to create a scene in the sandtray. In this manner, the therapist can gain increased understanding of the client's psyche. We worked with three sandtray therapists throughout the evolution of our prototype. We describe the details of the three phases of this design process: initial face-to-face meetings, iterative design and development via distance collaboration, and a final face-to-face feedback session. This process revealed that our prototype was sufficient for therapists to gain insight about a person's psyche through their interactions with the virtual sandtray.