Identifying and designing socio-emotional cues for group collaboration

1. M-Learning SymposiumWLE Centre Institute of Education Identifying and designing socio-emotional cues for group collaboration Dr Yanna Vogiazou, Dr Jonathan Freeman and Dr Jane Lessiter Goldsmiths College, University of London

2. Overview • Research objectives • User centered design methodology • Socio-emotional cues in collaboration @ work • …and @play • Design research through role play • User generated non verbal representations • Ongoing design process

3. Research objectives @ Work & @ Play: • What kind of personal, social and contextual cues? • User needs and wishes • Meaningful representations of socio-emotional and contextual cues for individuals and groups • Multiple modalities, non verbal • Different levels of privacy disclosure • Concept development

4. Combined design research Innovative research method: • Analytical, user-centred approach • Generative, users as co-creators of new concepts Workshops in collaborative work (Helsinki School of Economics), social gaming (University of Lincoln) and creative workshop at Goldsmiths College. Focus groups discussion card sorting early sketches role playing

5. Important elements of information Collaboration @ play: • Choosing a role for oneself • Signalling for emergent strategies • Excitement when playing with ‘strangers’ • Team support, group morale • ‘In’ and ‘out’ of the game Building a team: Skills, tactics, past experiences of players Collaboration @ work: • Attention & feedback • Activity & availability • Background , links, contribution, gain Effective within team communication: Shared {level of intellect, interests, understanding} + environment

6. Collaborative work

7. Social gaming

8. Prioritizing and grouping information Participant generated categories (collaborative work)

9. Connectedness in social gaming

10. Sketches: individual & context Participants from both found: • Posture and form can be very suggestive about an individual’s state (e.g. relaxed or unsettled) • Patterned background with the environmental context, but also mental state Environment

11. Sketches: group state Participants from both workshops found: Wavy line can represent activity or group cohesion. Focus on one individual can indicate a leader or spokesperson. Excitement and activity

12. Multimodal interaction and wearables Work:Haptic interfaces and vibration for non intrusive alerts in collaborative work. Connection to music - ‘subtraction’ for awareness Play:Smell and tactile feedback - great for gaming. Passive awareness vs alerts and active prompts a matter of personal preference for players

13. Design research through role playing role play intuitive representations sketching to develop more representations

14. A game of ‘charades’ Confused

15. Open and closed postures Growing distance Celebration

16. Multimodal representations Disagreement Crowd movement

17. Representations of private space

18. Insights from method • More cross cultural similarities in spontaneous representations • Participant engagement, more intuitive interaction • Flexible activity • Acting was used more than other modalities • Often modalities were combined (e.g. drawing and sound, acting and drawing) • Generation of intuitive, easily interpretable representations

19. Visualising socio-emotional cues

20. Ongoing design process…

21. Ongoing: mobile application design

22. Questions? Thank you! y.vogiazou@gold.ac.uk Forthcoming paper in HCI International 2007: “The use of improvisational role-play in user centered design processes”