Summary Response Week 9: Multi-Displays/Multi-Surface

CPSC 601.25 Week 9 Part 1

Paper

In this response I will discuss a paper that examines the 'visual separation' in mobile multi-surface systems and a paper which presents a set of gestures for use in traditional multi-display environments.

Towards Minority Report

In 2002 the blockbuster movie minority report appeared, among the high technology design of the film was a complete re-imagining of interaction with computers. Large semi-transparent screens, controlled at a distance, allowed digital objects like movies and picture to be dragged, flipped, expanded and moved to other devices with a flick of the wrist. This vision seems to live on with some multi-surface work as researchers try to implement a practical system that employs these interaction ideas.

Code Space

The authors of this papers have taken the multi-surface system concept the farthest in the literature we've reviewed. Their target problem is developer meetings, where several developers meet to discuss programming tasks or difficulties. They use the Kinect to track 'physical gestures' such as waving your arms or moving your hands - in conjunction with a mobile phone or laptop - allowing for what they call cross-device gestures. These gestures are all very application domain specific, designed to enable the interactions that the authors claim are useful for developer meetings. So much of the interaction is merely 'aided' by the device, and the primary gestural interaction is done by pointing or selecting objects. One weakness is that the evaluation for the paper is very weak, most people evaluating the system outside of an actual meeting are likely to be overly positive. It would also be interesting to see what kind of 'cross-device' gestures would be possible for a different task.

Pico Idea

The authors of the second paper seem to have taken a different approach to the problem. Previous research into multi-display environments had uncovered that 'visual separation' is an important factor, which is consistent with common sense. If a screen is placed in a way that is difficult to consult, is too far away or placed in awkward way it will be difficult to work with. These micro-context switches will probably delay work and eliminate the benefits provided by the displays. But the authors here are interested specifically in devices which will contain 'pico-projectors'. Phones outfitted with a projector - that will allow users to project a screen out against a wall or floor. In all probability - and despite "estimates" that 20 million phones will have pico-projectors in 3 years - these phones will probably not take off. The authors do an experiment with a fixed and free cell phone which they've outfitted with a projector and determine some information about eye tracking. They find some design principles but it's not clear that these are useful for systems which do not rely on projectors and which interact with traditional multi-surface systems. This is because the device is free to move but the screens are not.