GroupTogether is a system that explores cross-device interaction using two sociological constructs. First, Fformations concern the distance and relative body orientation among multiple users, which indicate when and how people position themselves as a group. Second, micromobility describes how people orient and tilt devices towards one another to promote fine-grained sharing during co-present collaboration. We sense these constructs using: (a) a pair of overhead Kinect depth cameras to sense small groups of people, (b) low-power 8GHz band radio modules to establish the identity, presence, and coarse-grained relative locations of devices, and (c) accelerometers to detect tilting of slate devices. The resulting system supports fluid, minimally disruptive techniques for co-located collaboration by leveraging the proxemics of people as well as the proxemics of devices.
We propose a navigation technique for browsing large documents that integrates rate-based scrolling with automatic zooming. The view automatically zooms out when the user scrolls rapidly so that the perceptual scrolling speed in screen space remains constant. As a result, the user can efficiently and smoothly navigate through a large document without becoming disoriented by extremely fast visual flow. By incorporating semantic zooming techniques, the user can smoothly access a global overview of the document during rate-based scrolling. We implemented several prototype systems, including a web browser, map viewer, image browser, and dictionary viewer. An informal usability study suggests that for a document browsing task, most subjects prefer automatic zooming and the technique exhibits approximately equal performance time to scroll bars, suggesting that automatic zooming is a helpful alternative to traditional scrolling when the zoomed out view provides appropriate visual cues.
This research explores distributed sensing techniques for mobile devices using synchronous gestures. These are patterns of activity, contributed by multiple users (or one user with multiple devices), which take on a new meaning when they occur together in time, or in a specific sequence in time. To explore this new area of inquiry, this work uses tablet computers augmented with touch sensors and twoaxis linear accelerometers (tilt sensors). The devices are connected via an 802.11 wireless network and synchronize their time-stamped sensor data. This paper describes a few practical examples of interaction techniques using synchronous gestures such as dynamically tiling together displays by physically bumping them together, discusses implementation issues, and speculates on further possibilities for synchronous gestures.
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