Abstract:
Video conferencing is becoming more widely used in areas other than
face-to-face conversation, such as sharing real world experience with remote
friends or family. In this paper we explore how adding augmented visual
communication cues can improve the experience of sharing remote task space
and collaborating together. We developed a prototype system that allows users
to share live video view of their task space taken on a Head Mounted Display
(HMD) or Handheld Display (HHD), and communicate through not only voice but
also using augmented pointer or annotations drawn on the shared view. To
explore the effect of having such an interface for remote collaboration, we
conducted a user study comparing three video-conferencing conditions with
different combination of communication cues: (1) voice only, (2) voice +
pointer, and (3) voice + annotation. The participants used our remote
collaboration system to share a parallel experience of puzzle solving in the
user study, and we found that adding augmented visual cues significantly
improved the sense of being together. The pointer was the most preferred
additional cue by users for parallel experience, and there were different
states of the users’ behavior found in remote collaboration.