International audienceThe use of a companion app to augment viewing of information-rich television programmes is investigated. The app displays a synchronised graphical abstraction of a programme's content in the form of a concept map. Two experiments were conducted involving participants watching an astronomy documentary with the app. The first compared watching the programme with and without the app, the second compared non-interactive and interactive versions of the app. Understanding of the programme, cross-device gaze behaviour and user experience of the app were assessed. Our results show that the companion app improved participants' understanding and recall of the programme. Participants were found to manage their visual attention systematically when using the companion app and correlations were found in the way they shifted their gaze from TV screen to tablet and back in response to changes in the programme content. Increasing interaction with the app disrupted understanding of the television programme and visual attention. Participants were positive about the value of companion apps for understanding and recall of programmes but distraction and 'knowing where to look' were significant concerns

The trend of users integrating second screen behaviours in their viewing habits, and practitioners' interest in designing systems to support them has evolved a strong research agenda. In this paper we extend these ideas to explore many-screen interaction, investigating how users, gathered around the television with multiple second screen devices, share, control and coordinate their interactions. We report on a formative evaluation into behaviours with a many-screen prototype app for watching sport programming. The Olympics Second Screen application allows users to watch, share and control highlight programmes in a collocated group. We discuss our findings through recommendations to designers and HCI practitioners. Our results suggest the importance of supporting parallel viewing between collocated viewers, and sharing and queuing of programming between devices. Additionally, results highlight the significance of the television in a viewing ecology, and user awareness of control and interaction.

There has been a massive growth in the number of people who film and upload amateur footage of events to services such as Facebook and Youtube, or even stream live to services such as LiveStream. We present an exploratory study that investigates the potential of these spectators in creating footage en masse; in this case, during a live trial at a local marathon. We deployed a prototype app, RunSpotRun, as a technology probe to see what kinds of footage spectators would produce. We present an analysis of this footage in terms of its coverage, quality, and contents, and also discuss the implications for a) spectators enjoying the race, and b) extracting the stories of individual runners throughout the race. We conclude with a discussion of the challenges that remain for deploying such technology at a larger scale.

This paper broadly explores novel tabletop interaction design opportunities for photo-souvenir consumption in a theme park context. We present the design and user evaluation of two tabletop applications for the playful triaging of photo collections within groups from a day trip to a UK theme park. Combining triaging with gameplay, the designs explore two distinct styles of user interaction, requiring either speed and dexterity or thoughtful strategy. Herein we discuss the rationale for the design process and the findings generated from our evaluation. Our study reveals the social impact of gameplay on user engagement with triaging tasks and implications for the deployment of interactive tabletop interfaces within theme parks to support photo consumption as part of the park experience.

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