Browsing by Author "Scott, S.D."

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    Cross-device transfer in a collaborative multi-surface environment without user identification
    (IEEE, 2014) Scott, S.D.; Besacier, G.; McClelland, P.J.
    Combining large interactive surface computers (e.g., digital walls and tables) with smaller, multi-touch surface devices (e.g., smartphones and tablets) provides groups of users with both private and shared workspaces during collaborative (or competitive) activities. Such multi-surface environments introduce the need for effective interaction techniques that enable the transfer of digital content from one device to another, commonly known as cross-device transfer. Utilizing popular existing cross-transfer methods, such as Pick-and-Drop, in a multi-user multi-surface environment, however, require systems that can distinguish between users in order for the environment to accurately know who is transferring what content to what device. Yet, most commercially available digital tabletop systems are not capable of distinguishing between different users. Therefore, existing cross-device transfer methods must be adapted to work in such a user-information limited context. This paper presents a user study comparing the effectiveness of two adapted transfer methods in the context of a strategic digital tabletop card game task. The two transfer methods included a virtual portals-style method, called Bridges, and an adapted Pick-and-Drop method (A-PND). The studied transfer methods both supported the high-levels of card-transfer between private (tablet) and tabletop surfaces required by the game task. Also, participants' reported preferences were equally divided between the two techniques. An in-depth qualitative analysis of the study data revealed that each transfer method provided unique advantages and disadvantages for the game task, which aligned better or worse with different players' personal task goals.
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    Improving the Social Gaming Experience by Comparing Physical and Digital Tabletop Board Games
    (2012) Chang, Y.-L.B.; Hancock, M.; Scott, S.D.; Pape, J.; Graham, T.C.N.
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    Investigating Tabletop Interfaces to Support Collaborative Decision-Making in Maritime Operations
    (2010) Scott, S.D.; Allavena, A.; Cerar, K.; Franck, G.; Hazen, M.; Shuter, T.; Colliver, C.
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    A Multi-Agency Collaboration and Coordination Hub (MACCH)
    (2011) Cheaib, N.; Cheung, V.; Cerar, K.; Scott, S.D.
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    Overcoming Interaction Barriers in Large Public Displays Using Personal Devices
    (ACM, 2014) Cheung, V.; Watson, D.; Vermeulen, J.; Hancock, M.; Scott, S.D.
    This work presents a design space in which personal devices are used as a means to facilitate "socially safe", ad-hoc interaction with large public displays. Unlike most existing work that focuses on facilitating content placement and transfer, this approach aims at minimizing the effort required to initiate, sustain, and withdraw from interaction with a large public display, and to communicate these capabilities to passersby. We identify barriers hindering this process, and offer advice on overcoming them based on existing work and our own experiences with these displays. We illustrate how this design concept can be applied, and motivate applications in other domains.
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    Supporting Situation Awareness in Collaborative Tabletop Systems with Automation
    (ACM, 2014) Chang, Y.-L.B.; Scott, S.D.; Hancock, M.
    Human operators collaborating to complete complex tasks, such as a team of emergency response operators, need to maintain a high level of situation awareness to appropriate-ly and quickly respond to critical changes. Even though automation can help manage complex tasks and rapidly update information, it may create confusion that negatively impacts operators' situation awareness, and result in sub-optimal decisions. To improve situation awareness in co-located environments on digital tabletop computers, we developed an interactive event timeline that enables exploration of historical system events, using a collaborative digital board game as a case study. We conducted a user study to examine two factors, placement of timelines for multiple users and location of awareness feedback, to understand their impact on situation awareness. The study revealed that interaction with the timeline was correlated with improved situation awareness, and that displaying feedback both on the game board and timeline was the most preferred.
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    Surface Ghosts: Promoting Awareness of Transferred Objects during Pick-and-Drop Transfer in Multi-Surface Environments
    (ACM, 2014) Scott, S.D.; Besacier, G.; Tournet, J.; Goyal, N.; Haller, M.
    Rekimoto's Pick-and-Drop (P&D) transfer technique is commonly used to support multi-surface object transfer (e.g., between a shared tabletop and tablet) due to its easily understood metaphor of emulating object movement in the physical world. Current multi-surface implementations of P&D provide little to no feedback during transfer, causing confusion for the person performing the action as well as others in the environment. To address this issue, we investigated the use of virtual embodiments to improve awareness of transferred objects, in the context of a real-world group task that relied heavily on cross-device transfer. An iterative design process led to the design of Surface Ghosts virtual embodiments, which take the form of semi-transparent 'ghosts' of the transferred objects displayed under the "owner's" hand on the tabletop during transfer. A user study that compared two Surface Ghosts designs-varied by how explicitly the "owner" was indicated-showed that both designs improved awareness of transferred objects when compared to a no-feedback control condition, especially for tabletop-to-tablet transfers.