Perspective on and re-orientation of physical proxies in object-focused remote collaboration

• Main Authors: FEICK, Martin, MOK, Terrance, TANG, Anthony, OEHLBERG, Lora, SHARLIN, Ehud
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2018
• Subjects: Collaborative physical tasks; Cscw; Object-focused collaboration; Physical telepresence; Remote collaboration; Graphics and Human Computer Interfaces
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/7976; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sis_research/article/8979/viewcontent/3173574.3173855.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Remote collaborators working together on physical objects have difficulty building a shared understanding of what each person is talking about. Conventional video chat systems are insufficient for many situations because they present a single view of the object in a flattened image. To understand how this limited perspective affects collaboration, we designed the Remote Manipulator (ReMa), which can reproduce orientation manipulations on a proxy object at a remote site. We conducted two studies with ReMa, with two main findings. First, a shared perspective is more effective and preferred compared to the opposing perspective offered by conventional video chat systems. Second, the physical proxy and video chat complement one another in a combined system: people used the physical proxy to understand objects, and used video chat to perform gestures and confirm remote actions.