ET and AVQA: Methods for Finding Requirements and Managing Design of Small Group Interaction in 3D

Student: Sean P. Goggins, University of Missouri

Abstract:

The HCI community is beginning to wrestle with the challenges of effective interaction design for groups collaborating in 3D virtual worlds. Understanding of the requirements and design processes necessary to support these new technologies is still emerging. While the gaming community has developed heuristics for game design over a 25 year period, the adaptation of this knowledge for the design of virtual collaboration spaces has been limited. Following a research through design approach, we create novel integrations and applications of HCI research methods in an attempt to understand the collaborative work of a small group of individuals in a 3D virtual world. Specifically, the fine grained perspective provided by eye-tracking (ET), and a more coarse unit of analysis, provided by All-Views-Qualitative-Analysis (AVQA), are applied to understand non-gaming interaction in 3D virtual worlds. To formalize an integrated method, we describe three lenses for analyzing eye-tracking data in graphics intensive and animated virtual applications. Then, we combine those outcomes with a single method for integrating and analyzing the points-of-view of all participants in a small group collaborating on a creative work task in a 3D virtual world. Through these examples, we illustrate the benefits of this type of research for 3D virtual world designers.

Bio:

Sean P. Goggins is a a PhD candidate at the University of Missouri, Columbia who has been working his way through graduate school as both a full time student, and full time interaction designer and leader of small software development teams. His research focuses on socio-technical systems and theory to support physically distributed small group collaboration and creativity. He pursues this agenda through design based research methods (Simon, 1969; Barab & Squire, 2004; Stahl, 2006), quantitative analysis of joint performance outcomes among small groups (Carroll et al, 2005) and deep ethnographic studies of small online group formation and development.