Nods of Agreement: Webcam-Driven Avatars Improve Meeting and Avatar Satisfaction Over Audio-Driven or Static Avatars in All-Avatar Work VideoconferencingAvatars are edging into mainstream videoconferencing, but evaluation of how avatar animation modalities contribute to work meeting outcomes has been limited. We report a within-group videoconferencing experiment in which 68 employees of a global technology company, in 16 groups, used the same stylized avatars in three modalities (static picture, audio-animation, and webcam-animation) to complete collaborative decision-making tasks. Quantitatively, for meeting outcomes, webcam-animated avatars improved meeting effectiveness over the picture modality and were also reported to be more comfortable and inclusive than both other modalities. In terms of avatar satisfaction, there was a similar preference for webcam animation as compared to both other modalities. Our qualitative analysis shows participants expressing a preference for the holistic motion of webcam animation, and that meaningful movement outweighs realism for meeting outcomes, as evidenced through a systematic overview of ten thematic factors. We discuss implications for research and commercial deployment and conclude that webcam-animated avatars are a plausible alternative to video in work meetings.2025FMFang Ma et al.Making Work Meetings BetterCSCW
Sensing NatureThe rise of urbanisation has reduced connection with nature and physical interaction, both crucial for well-being and pro-environmental behavior. Sensing Nature is a multisensory virtual reality installation that aims to energize and nourish the spirit by reimagining the natural world as a playful, immersive experience. Users create a sensory journey by interacting with a haptic tree and exploring real-world fabrics and textures. Each touch triggers a transformation of the virtual tree, blending blooming virtual flowers, nature-inspired spatial sounds, and physical vibrations for a unique immersive experience. This project investigated multisensory interaction in virtual reality’ s impacts on people’s feelings and attitude to nature, addressing the lack of direct touch-based haptic interactions in VR by incorporating active and passive haptic feedback. Qualitative studies shown that multisensory interactions in virtual reality induce healing effects, relaxation and shift attitudes towards nature, demonstrating sensing nature’s potential application for relaxation and pro- environmental attitudes.2025TZTianyuan Zhang et al.Immersion & Presence ResearchHuman-Nature Relationships (More-than-Human Design)DIS
Using Wearable Sensors to Measure Interpersonal Synchrony in Actors and Audience Members During a Live Theatre Performance"Studying social interaction in real-world settings is of increasing importance to social cognitive researchers. Theatre provides an ideal opportunity to study rich face-to-face interactions in a controlled, yet natural setting. Here we collaborated with Flute Theatre to investigate interpersonal synchrony between actors-actors, actors-audience and audience-audience within a live theatrical setting. Our 28 participants consisted of 6 actors and 22 audience members, with 5 of these audience members being audience participants in the show. The performance was a compilation of acting, popular science talks and demonstrations, and an audience participation period. Interpersonal synchrony was measured using inertial measurement unit (IMU) wearable accelerometers worn on the heads of participants, whilst audio-visual data recorded everything that occurred on the stage. Participants also completed post-show self-report questionnaires on their engagement with the overall scientists and actors performance. Cross Wavelet Transform (XWT) and Wavelet Coherence Transform (WCT) analysis were conducted to extract synchrony at different frequencies, pairing with audio-visual data. Findings revealed that XWT and WCT analysis are useful methods in extracting the multiple types of synchronous activity that occurs when people perform or watch a live performance together. We also found that audience members with higher ratings on questionnaire items such as the strength of their emotional response to the performance, or how empowered they felt by the performance, showed a high degree of interpersonal synchrony with actors during the acting segments of performance. We further found that audience members rated the scientists performance higher than the actors performance on questions related to their emotional response to the performance as well as, how uplifted, empowered, and connected to social issues they felt. This shows the types of potent connections audience members can have with live performances. Additionally, our findings highlight the importance of the performance context for audience engagement, in our case a theatre performance as part of public engagement with science rather than a stand-alone theatre performance. In sum we conclude that interdisciplinary real-world paradigms are an important and understudied route to understanding in-person social interactions. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3580781"2023YSYanke Sun et al.Full-Body Interaction & Embodied InputDigital Art Installations & Interactive PerformanceUbiComp
Embodying an Interactive AI for Dance Through Movement IdeationWhat expectations exist in the minds of dancers when interacting with a generative machine learning model? During two workshop events, experienced dancers explore these expectations through improvisation and role-play, embodying an imagined AI-dancer. Through discussions with the participants we identify a variety of ways an AI-dancer might be useful to human dancers. The dancers explored how intuited flow, shared images, and the concept of a human replica might work in their imagined AI-human interaction. Our findings challenge existing assumptions about what is desired from generative models of dance, such as expectations of realism, and how such systems should be evaluated. We further advocate that such models should celebrate non-human artefacts, focus on the potential for serendipitous moments of discovery, and that dance practitioners should be included in their development. Our concrete suggestions show how our findings can be adapted into the development of improved generative and interactive machine learning models for dancers' creative practice.2023BWBenedikte Wallace et al.Generative AI (Text, Image, Music, Video)Digital Art Installations & Interactive PerformanceDance & Body Movement ComputingC&C
Dealing with digital service closurePeople integrate digital services into their day-to-day lives, often with the assumption that they will always be available. What happens when these services close down? The introduction of services might be carefully planned, but their closure may not benefit from the same degree of consideration. A more developed understanding of the effects of closures might make it possible to minimize negative consequences for users. This paper builds on sustainability, digital memories, and collaborative-work research through an empirical investigation of service closure. Fifty-five participants completed a questionnaire that solicited experiences of service closure and attitudes toward prospective closure. Through a qualitative analysis of participant responses, we synthesized six themes that reflected the practical and emotional effects of service closure on people: disempowerment, disconnection, loss of capability, trust, time and effort, and notice periods. We make suggestions for ways that service features related to these themes might be managed during closure, but also identify less tractable challenges: as part of this investigation, we introduce and develop the concept of \emph{service patinas} to describe the important but entirely service-bound data that contextualize digital artefacts.2022SGSandy J. J. Gould et al.Access to Information and Services; Access to Information and ServicesCSCW
Seeing our Blind Spots: Smart Glasses-based Simulation to Increase Design Students Awareness of Visual ImpairmentAs the population ages, many will acquire visual impairments. To improve design for these users, it is essential to build awareness of their perspective during everyday routines, especially for design students. Although several visual impairment simulation toolkits exist in both academia and as commercial products, analog, and static visual impairment simulation tools do not simulate effects concerning the user's eye movements. Meanwhile, VR and video see-through-based AR simulation methods are constrained by smaller fields of view when compared with the natural human visual field and also suffer from vergence-accommodation conflict (VAC) which correlates with visual fatigue, headache, and dizziness. In this paper, we enable an on-the-go, VAC-free, visually impaired experience by leveraging our optical see-through glasses. The FOV of our glasses is approximately 160 degrees for horizontal and 140 degrees for vertical, and participants can experience both losses of central vision and loss of peripheral vision at different severities. Our evaluation (n =14) indicates that the glasses can significantly and effectively reduce visual acuity and visual field without causing typical motion sickness symptoms such as headaches and or visual fatigue. Questionnaires and qualitative feedback also showed how the glasses helped to increase participants’ awareness of visual impairment.2022QZXiang Zhang et al.Haptic WearablesVisual Impairment Technologies (Screen Readers, Tactile Graphics, Braille)UIST
Exquisite Circuits: Collaborative Electronics Design through Drawing GamesWe present Exquisite Circuits, a novel collaborative circuit design approach that remixes the surrealist Exquisite Corpse drawing game for paper circuits. In this pictorial, five participants played the game and documented their design, fabrication, and thought processes during gameplay. From these results, we contribute lessons learned on how game elements like surprise, ambiguous goals, and shared responsibility open new ways of thinking about the expressive and collaborative design of technology. Exquisite Circuits, through paper circuitry's hybrid of aesthetic and functional design affordances, helps reveal tensions between arts and technology cultures and approaches. We invite educators, designers, and technology creators to try their own variations of the Exquisite Circuits and share their results with the creative technology community.2021JQJie Qi et al.Circuit Making & Hardware PrototypingMakerspace CultureC&C
Isness: Using Multi-Person VR to Design Peak Mystical Type Experiences Comparable to PsychedelicsStudies combining psychotherapy with psychedelic drugs (?Ds) have demonstrated positive outcomes that are often associated with ?Ds' ability to induce 'mystical-type' experiences (MTEs) – i.e., subjective experiences whose characteristics include a sense of connectedness, transcendence, and ineffability. We suggest that both PsiDs and virtual reality can be situated on a broader spectrum of psychedelic technologies. To test this hypothesis, we used concepts, methods, and analysis strategies from ?D research to design and evaluate 'Isness', a multi-person VR journey where participants experience the collective emergence, fluctuation, and dissipation of their bodies as energetic essences. A study (N=57) analyzing participant responses to a commonly used ?D experience questionnaire (MEQ30) indicates that Isness participants reported MTEs comparable to those reported in double-blind clinical studies after high doses of psilocybin and LSD. Within a supportive setting and conceptual framework, VR phenomenology can create the conditions for MTEs from which participants derive insight and meaning.2020DGDavid R. Glowacki et al.University of Bristol & ArtSci International FoundationSocial & Collaborative VRImmersion & Presence ResearchCHI
TaskCam: Designing and Testing an Open Tool for Cultural Probes StudiesTaskCams are simple digital cameras intended to serve as a tool for Cultural Probe studies and made available by the Interaction Research Studio via open-source distribution. In conjunction with an associated website, instructions and videos, they represent a novel strategy for disseminating and facilitating a research methodology. At the same time, they provide a myriad of options for customisation and modification, allowing researchers to adopt and adapt them to their needs. In the first part of this paper, the design team describes the rationale and design of the TaskCams and the tactics developed to make them publicly available. In the second part, the story is taken up by designers from the Everyday Design Studio, who assembled their own TaskCams and customised them extensively for a Cultural Probe study they ran for an ongoing project. Rather than discussing the results of their study, we focus on how their experiences reveal some of the issues both in producing and using open-source products such as these. These suggest the potential of TaskCams to support design-led user studies more generally.2018ABAndy Boucher et al.GoldsmithsParticipatory DesignUser Research Methods (Interviews, Surveys, Observation)Prototyping & User TestingCHI