Implicit and explicit interactions in video mediated collaboration

Abstract

In this paper we report the results of a study comparing implicit-only and explicit-only interactions in a collaborative, video-mediated task with shared content. Expanding on earlier work which has typically only evaluated how implicit interaction can augment primarily explicit systems, we report issues surrounding control, anxiousness and negotiation in the context of video mediated collaboration. We conclude that implicit interaction has the potential to improve collaborative work, but that there are a multitude of issues that must first be negotiated.

Explicating "Implicit Interaction"

“…For example, Kuikkaniemi et al start with an a-priori distinction between implicit and explicit feedback mechanisms in a first-person shooter game, but interviews during the study show that some participants became aware of the effect [56]. Fisk et al report the evaluation of an "implicit-only" interface, where two remote users could control a shared workspace only indirectly, by talking to each other [31], but observe that the proposed interaction method resulted in participants modifying the flow of their conversation to control the shared workspace. Verbal accounts and qualitative differences can be harder to observe for low-level interactions, meaning that researchers can expand their methodological toolbox into experimental techniques.…”

“…For example, a text editor can utilize users' editing actions as a trigger for auto-saving the document, but in the absence of a "save" command, users can resort to editing the document as a means to trigger an auto-save. Previous work documents such instances in which interactions that were designed to be "implicit-only" turned out to be intentional and at the focus of users' attention because they were the only means to reach a specific outcome [31].…”

Traces

“…This is less likely to be sustained with people in a building who often have primary goals other than interacting with the display, and have limited time to actively engage with it. The use of reactive feedback, where individuals interact with a public display, in implicit ways (either unconsciously not noticing interaction, or consciously but ignoring it while pursuing other practices [9,11,42]), may be a better approach. However, it has not yet been studied how basing interaction on reactive feedback itself might overcome the need to have active participants constantly interacting to have value.…”

“…Although research has considered how users interact in different ways with wall displays (i.e. implicit, passive, active interaction) [11,29,42], work has not yet focused on how recurrent interactions may evolve over time in relation to appropriation.…”