Julie R. Williamson

• PhD Computing Science
• Lecturer at University of Glasgow

Immersive technologies allow us to personalize our reality while traveling; however, widespread adoption remains limited. This study investigates the challenges of adopting immersive devices in transit, particularly when passengers encounter asymmetric experiences using disparate devices. These situations arise as co-located passengers adopt device...

Augmented Reality (AR) headsets could significantly improve the passenger experience, freeing users from the restrictions of physical smartphones, tablets and seatback displays. However, the confined space of public transport and the varying proximity to other passengers may restrict what interaction techniques are deemed socially acceptable for AR...

Immersive technologies allow us to control and customise how we experience reality, but are not widely used in transit due to safety, social acceptability, and comfort barriers. We propose that cues from reality can create reference points in virtuality, which we call Reality Anchors, will reduce these barriers. We used simulated public transportat...

Virtual reality (VR) users are often around bystanders, i.e. people in the real world the VR user may want to interact with. To facilitate bystander-VR user interactions, technology-mediated awareness systems have been introduced to increase a user’s awareness of bystanders. However, while prior works have found effective means of facilitating byst...

Passengers spend considerable periods of time in shared transit spaces, relying on smartphones and laptops for work. However, these displays are limited in size and ergonomics compared to typical multi-monitor setups used in the office, impairing productivity. Augmented Reality (AR) headsets could provide large, flexible virtual workspaces during t...

Mixed Reality (MR) headsets enable the rendering of virtual content selectively intermixed with reality. These headsets have the capacity to allow passengers to break free from the restraints of physical displays placed in constrained environments such as cars, trains and planes. Moreover, they have the potential to allow passengers to make better...

This paper examines key challenges in supporting passenger use of augmented and virtual reality headsets in transit. These headsets will allow passengers to break free from the restraints of physical displays placed in constrained environments such as cars, trains and planes. Moreover, they have the potential to allow passengers to make better use...

We describe a novel display concept where levitating particles are used to add a dynamic display element to static physical objects. The particles are actuated using ultrasound, for expressive output without mechanical constraints. We explore novel ways of using particles to add dynamic output to other objects, for new interactive experiences. We a...

Virtual reality (VR) headsets allow wearers to escape their physical surroundings, immersing themselves in a virtual world. Although escape may not be realistic or acceptable in many everyday situations, air travel is one context where early adoption of VR could be very attractive. While travelling, passengers are seated in restricted spaces for lo...

Everyday mobile usage of AR and VR Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs) is becoming a feasible consumer reality. The current research agenda for HMDs has a strong focus on technological impediments (e.g. latency, field of view, locomotion, tracking, input) as well as perceptual aspect (e.g. distance compression, vergence-accomodation ). However, this ignor...

Room-scale Virtual Reality (VR) has become an affordable consumer reality, with applications ranging from entertainment to productivity. However, the limited physical space available for room-scale VR in the typical home or office environment poses a significant problem. To solve this, physical spaces can be extended by amplifying the mapping of ph...

This demonstration showcases the current state of the art for the levitating particle display from the Levitate Project. In this demonstration, we show a new type of display consisting of floating voxels, small levitating particles that can be positioned and moved independently in 3D space. Phased ultrasound arrays are used to acoustically levitate...

Interactive installations staged in unusual settings create compelling experiences that blend explicit and implicit performances. When users can participate in the performance of an unfolding story, they perform for the others who may be watching. In this paper, we explore interactive installations from a performative perspective to exploit perform...

Public evaluations are popular because some research questions can only be answered by turning "to the wild." Different approaches place experimenters in different roles during deployment, which has implications for the kinds of data that can be collected and the potential bias introduced by the experimenter. This paper expands our understanding of...

Spherical displays afford social interaction, where users can crowd around the display to explore content together. Related work has explored different aspects of public display interaction, but the distribution and layout of content is often ignored by researchers and users alike. We present Venue Finder, an interactive spherical display that prov...

In this paper we present a novel technique for visualising cyclical data on a spherical display. We developed a visualisation that represents axes such as weekly and hourly cycles with an interaction that is topologically toroidal but visually spherical. This is used to develop a natural, continuous interaction for exploring temporal patterns on a...

Spherical displays present compelling opportunities for interaction in public spaces. However, there is little research into how touch interaction should control a spherical surface or how these displays are used in real world settings. This paper presents an in the wild deployment of an application for a spherical display called GlobalFestival tha...

Public displays are used a variety of contexts, from utility driven information displays to playful entertainment displays. Spherical displays offer new opportunities for interaction in public spaces, allowing users to face each other during interaction and explore content from a variety of angles and perspectives. This paper presents a playful ins...

The growing popularity of methodologies that turn "to the wild" for real world data creates new ethical issues for the HCI community. For investigations questioning interactions in public or transient spaces, crowd interaction, or natural behaviour, uncontrolled and uninfluenced (by the experimenter) experiences represent the ideal evaluation envir...

Spherical displays offer unique affordances for multi-player games and playful interactions in social spaces. The shape of a spherical display allows users to face each other and maintain eye contact during interaction, creating a different social dynamic than at a flat display. There is also no intrinsically defined front or centre of the display,...

This paper presents a powerful approach to evaluating public technologies by capturing and analysing pedestrian traffic using computer vision. This approach is highly flexible and scales better than traditional ethnographic techniques often used to evaluate technology in public spaces. This technique can be used to evaluate a wide variety of public...

Capturing and making use of observable actions and behaviours presents compelling opportunities for allowing end-users to interact with such data and eachother. For example, simple visualisations based on on detected behaviour or context allow users to interpret this data based on their existing knowledge and awarness of social cues. This paper pre...

The user experience of performing gesture-based interactions in public spaces is highly dependent on context, where users must decide which gestures they will use and how they will perform them. In order to complete a realistic evaluation of how users make these decisions, the evaluation of such user experiences must be completed "in the wild." Fur...

Designing interactive systems for older adults often means designing with older adults from the earliest stages of development. This paper describes the co-design of a smartpen and paper calendar-based reminder system for the home. The design sessions involved older adults and used experience prototypes [1]. We completed these co-design sessions wi...

Reminder systems are a specific range of technologies for care at home that can deliver notifications or reminders (such as 'take your medication') to assist with daily living. How to best deliver these reminders is an interesting research challenge. Today's technologies have the potential to deliver the notifications in a range of output modalitie...

More and more interactive artifacts are used in public on an everyday basis, and metaphors from performance and theatre studies find their way into research on these interfaces, addressing how interaction with technology can be understood in a performative sense. Through theoretical discussions as well as practical design activities and building on...

When designing home care systems to keep individuals independent in their homes longer, multimodal interaction provides a compelling approach to creating an enjoyable and usable experience. Previous work in multimodal home care systems has looked at how reminders might be disruptive [1] or socially appropriate [5]. However, previous work has not lo...

As increasingly more interactions occur in public or social settings, the concept of interaction as a “performance” provides a compelling perspective when evaluating user experience (UX). Building on dramaturgical/performative metaphors and phenomenological theory, this paper presents a performative perspective on UX that focuses on mobile or publi...

This paper presents a study that explores the issues of mobile multimodal interactions while on the move in the real world. Because multimodal interfaces allow new kinds of eyes and hands free interactions, usability issues while moving through different public spaces becomes an important issue in user experience and acceptance of multimodal intera...

Building on the assumption that every human action in public space has a performative aspect, this workshop seeks to explore issues of interactions with technology in public settings. More and more interfaces are used in public on an everyday basis. Simultaneously, metaphors from performance and theatre studies find their way into research on these...

The use of performance as the focus of interaction provides the opportunity for exploratory and individual experiences but can also put users in an uncomfortable position. This paper presents an initial user study of a mobile remote awareness application in which users can control their own fish in a virtual fish tank using multimodal input from an...

Interaction techniques that require users to adopt new behaviors mean that designers must take into account social acceptability and user experience otherwise the techniques may be rejected by users as they are too embarrassing to do in public. This research uses a set of low cost prototypes to study social acceptability and user perceptions of mul...

Building on the assumption that every human action in public space has a performative aspect, this workshop seeks to explore issues of mobile technology and interactions in public settings. We will examine the design of performative technologies, the evaluation of user experience, the importance of spectator and performer roles, and the social acce...

Multimodal mobile interfaces require users to adopt new and possibly strange behaviors in public places. It is important to design these interfaces to account for the social restrictions of public settings. However, past research in multimodal interaction has primarily focused on issues of sensing and recognition rather than the investigation of us...

Gesture-based mobile interfaces require users to change the way they use technology in public settings. Since mobile phones are part of our public appearance, designers must integrate gestures that users perceive as acceptable for pub-lic use. This topic has received little attention in the litera-ture so far. The studies described in this paper be...

Gesture based interfaces provide a new way for us to interact with mobile devices, but also require us to make new decisions about how we feel about this new technology and which gestures we decide are usable and appropriate. These decisions are based on the social and public settings where these devices are used on a daily basis. Our ideas about w...

In this paper we discuss some of the key issues behind the need to move away from screens and keyboards on mobile devices. Our aim is to allow non-hand based gestures for input with 3D sound and tactile displays for output to create more effective mobile interactions that make mobile devices easier to use when on the move.

No abstract available.