Collaboration around Multi-touch Spherical Displays: A Field Study at a Science Museum

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Multi-touch spherical displays that enable groups of people to collaboratively interact are increasingly being used in informal learning environments such as museums. Prior research on large flatscreen displays has examined group collaboration patterns in museum settings to inform the design of group learning experiences around these displays. However, designing collaborative interfaces for multi-touch spherical displays remains challenging as we do not yet completely understand how visitor groups naturally collaborate around these displays in a naturalistic museum setting. The spherical form factor of the display affords new forms of collaboration: Unlike flatscreen displays, spherical displays do not have a definite front or center, thus intrinsically creating shared and private touch interaction areas on the display based on users’ viewing angles or physical arrangements. We conducted a 5-day long field study at a local science museum during which 571 visitors (370 adults and 201 children) in 211 groups interacted with a walk-up-and-use collaborative learning application showing global science data visualizations, on a multi-touch spherical display. We qualitatively analyzed groups’ natural collaboration patterns including their physical arrangements (F-formations), their collaboration profiles (e.g., turn-taker or independent), and the nature of group discussion around the display. Our results show that groups often engaged in both independent as well as closely collaborative group explorations when interacting around the sphere: physical spacing between group members around the sphere was strongly linked to the way groups collaborated. It was less common for group members to make and accept suggestions or coordinate touch interactions when they did not share the same field of view or touch interaction space around the sphere with each other. Our work will discuss implications for supporting group collaboration in this context and inform the design of future walk-up-and-use multi-touch spherical display applications for use in public settings.