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Sometimes when we touch : how arm embodiments change reaching and collaboration on digital tables

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DoucetteEtAl_SometimesWhenWeTouch.pdf (1.005Mb)
Date
23/02/2013
Author
Doucette, Andre
Gutwin, Carl
Mandryk, Regan L.
Nacenta, Miguel
Sharma, Sunny
Keywords
Embodiments
Reaching
Social norms
Tabletops
Interaction
Co-located groupware
QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science
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Abstract
In tabletop work with direct input, people avoid crossing each others' arms. This natural touch avoidance has important consequences for coordination: for example, people rarely grab the same item simultaneously, and negotiate access to the workspace via turn-taking. At digital tables, however, some situations require the use of indirect input (e.g., large tables or remote participants), and in these cases, people are often represented with virtual arm embodiments. There is little information about what happens to coordination and reaching when we move from physical to digital arm embodiments. To gather this information, we carried out a controlled study of tabletop behaviour with different embodiments. We found dramatic differences in moving to a digital embodiment: people touch and cross with virtual arms far more than they do with real arms, which removes a natural coordination mechanism in tabletop work. We also show that increasing the visual realism of the embodiment does not change behaviour, but that changing the thickness has a minor effect. Our study identifies important design principles for virtual embodiments in tabletop groupware, and adds to our understanding of embodied interaction in small groups.
Citation
Doucette , A , Gutwin , C , Mandryk , R L , Nacenta , M & Sharma , S 2013 , Sometimes when we touch : how arm embodiments change reaching and collaboration on digital tables . in Proceedings of the 2013 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work . CSCW '13 , ACM , New York, NY, USA , pp. 193-202 . https://doi.org/10.1145/2441776.2441799
Publication
Proceedings of the 2013 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1145/2441776.2441799
Type
Conference item
Rights
© ACM 2013. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive Version of Record was published in the Proceedings of the 2013 conference on Computer supported cooperative work (CSCW '13), http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2441776.2441799 The copy of record of the paper can be found in: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=2441776.2441799
Description
This work was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the SurfNet Research Network, and the Walter C. Sumner Foundation.
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  • University of St Andrews Research
URL
http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2441776.2441799
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/5512

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