An exploratory analysis of partner action and camera control in a video-mediated collaborative task

  • Authors:
  • Abhishek Ranjan;Jeremy P. Birnholtz;Ravin Balakrishnan

  • Affiliations:
  • University of Toronto;University of Toronto;University of Toronto

  • Venue:
  • CSCW '06 Proceedings of the 2006 20th anniversary conference on Computer supported cooperative work
  • Year:
  • 2006

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Abstract

This paper reports on an exploratory experimental study of the relationships between physical movement and desired visual information in the performance of video-mediated collaborative tasks in the real world by geographically distributed groups. Twenty-three pairs of participants (one "helper" and one "worker") linked only by video and audio participated in a Lego construction task in one of three experimental conditions: a fixed scene camera, a helper-controlled pan-tilt-zoom camera, and a dedicated operator-controlled camera. "Worker" motion was tracked in 3-D space for all three conditions, as were all camera movements. Results suggest performance benefits for the operator-controlled condition, and the relationships between camera position/movement and worker action are explored to generate preliminary theoretical and design implications.