Supporting awareness and interaction through collaborative virtual interfaces

  • Authors:
  • Mike Fraser;Steve Benford;Jon Hindmarsh;Christian Heath

  • Affiliations:
  • Communications Research Group, School of Computer Science & I.T., University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, U.K.;Communications Research Group, School of Computer Science & I.T., University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, U.K.;Work, Interaction and Technology Research Group, The Management Centre, Franklin-Wilkins Building, King's College London, London SE1 8WA, U.K.;Work, Interaction and Technology Research Group, The Management Centre, Franklin-Wilkins Building, King's College London, London SE1 8WA, U.K.

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 12th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology
  • Year:
  • 1999

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Abstract

This paper explores interfaces to virtual environments supporting multiple users. An interface to an environment allowing interaction with virtual artefacts is constructed, drawing on previous proposals for 'desktop' virtual environments. These include the use of Peripheral Lenses to support peripheral awareness in collaboration; and extending the ways in which users' actions are represented for each other. Through a qualitative analysis of a design task, the effect of the proposals is outlined. Observations indicate that, whilst these designs go some way to re-constructing physical co-presence in terms of awareness and interaction through the environment, some issues remain. Notably, peripheral distortion in supporting awareness may cause problematic interactions with and through the virtual world; and extended representations of actions may still allow problems in re-assembling the composition of others' actions. We discuss the potential for: designing representations for distorted peripheral perception; and explicitly displaying the course of action in object-focused interaction.