Hi, everyone.
I'm Hanuma Teja Maddali, a PhD student
at the University of Maryland.
My co authors are Andrew Irlitti and Amanda Lazar.
Welcome to a talk on probing the potential of extended
reality to connect experts and novices in the garden.
Extended reality, or XR, for those of
you unfamiliar, represents a continuum of technologies
from augmented to virtual reality.
Varying combinations of real and virtual objects are
overlaid on the user's field of view to
alter how they perceive their environment.
The HCI and CSCW community has long been
interested in XR design for remote expert guidance.
XR experiences are becoming increasingly immersive and
interactive, so there's been a revitalized interest
in XR based systems that augment remote
guidance and training for physical tasks.
For example, in professional settings like surgical
training, field servicing, and industrial design.
Even as our understanding of XR for remote
collaboration in professional settings has grown.
We need to note that XR devices are becoming
more accessible as consumer devices for informal settings.
An area to examine is how XR can
support such expert novice, collaboration in informal settings
as exemplified by skilled physical hobbies, the interaction
needs and motivations of experts and novices can
differ between professional and hobbyist settings.
Hobbyists are usually more motivated by the
joys of production and learning a way
of life rather than an economic incentive.
Hobbyist learning also differs from professional settings
in the way that skillsharing takes place
in settings involving family and friends and
how strictly the training is evaluated.
For this paper, we chose to focus
on the hobby activity of gardening.
Gardening is a popular activity where learning often
takes place in an informal community setting.
Within HCI research, there have been calls for
studying how socio-technological systems could support skill
sharing in the garden and in supporting communities
when there aren't many local experienced volunteers, for
example, in school gardening programs.
The advantages of remote XR systems or conventional
video have been well studied in research on
remote expert instruction for physical tasks, so there's
an opportunity to understand whether XR could augment
such learning experiences in informal settings.
With our paper Taking Remote Groups of Gardeners as
the Case for a Hobbyist setting, in this work
we try to understand the perceptions of practitioners regarding
remote skillsharing in the garden, the kinds of interactions
that could be supported in XR for novice versus
expert gardeners, and the degree to which the users
might benefit from XR technology for collaboration.
In order to do this, we conducted two user
centered design studies which involved iterations of prototyping
at different fidelity as well as semistructured interviews
as part of the prototype evaluation process.
For these two studies, we recruited 27
participants with varying levels of expertise who
reported regularly gardening, assisting with the garden,
or were experienced gardeners or novices.
Participants were encouraged to involve relatives,
friends, or, for example, mentors they
learnt gardening from as study partners.
In the first study, we created two exploratory
storyboards and two experience prototypes that were set
in different social contexts and with one or
all users working in a physical garden.
We conducted Five 60 minutes sessions with
Eleven participants.
Participants performed some pre chosen on-site tasks
as a reference experience when providing feedback on
prototypes from these sessions. We categorized the interactions
between participants during the onsite sessions and in
their prototype feedback into three types, which are
instruction, observation and discussion.
In the second study, we
designed three medium fidelity XR prototypes, each
based on a popular activity for the key interactions from study one, which
is instruction, discussion and observation.
We evaluated
each prototype with an expert novice dyad role
playing a scenario for the associated activity.
One participant from the dyad acted as a remote user
wearing a VR headset and the other as the user
in the garden using an AR device, which could be
a tablet or a mobile, but mostly tablet.
As an example, our garden planning prototype was
based on the key interaction of discussion.
Here, the remote expert wearing a VR headset collaborates
with an onsite novice using the AR tablet.
Their scenario was to plan an empty
garden plot represented by a 360 image in VR.
The remote expert is provided with a virtual
spade to plant virtual plants and a drawing tool that
is used to draw layouts or point at areas of interest.
Other prototypes also have the drawing tool and
a virtual camera tool to help with the
instruction or observation related scenarios. 10 expert novice dyads evaluated three XR prototypes
in a simulated remote setting with respect to how they would normally perform
the activities associated with these prototypes. We collected
a combination of observation notes and 14 hours
of videos of groups from both studies, and
we perform the thematic analysis of this data.
We followed Braun and Clarke's suggested approach,
starting with the familiarization of data through
transcription, initial coding and identifying emerging themes,
and iteratively building on these with the
research team to produce the findings.
Our findings cover three salient
themes from the analysis.
The first theme is participants perspectives
on remote gardening with XR.
We see some perspectives that encouraged questions about
using XR and others who are more open
to the idea from the beginning.
These are usually related to how
participants use natural spaces and in
person sensory experiences with gardening.
And while there was some initial hesistancy
towards XR, some participants provided positive examples
of remote interaction from gardens that helped
others visualize possibilities for XR.
For example, E8 talked about enjoying FaceTiming with
her mother from her garden to ask questions.
We also find different views on whether
XR itself needed to be the medium.
Some participants felt comfortable with the computer screen,
while others thought of XR as a nice
leeway between regular video and being able to
get feedback as if you're on site.
And they were also comfortable with XR.
The second salient theme from our analysis
is the usability of the XR prototypes for the three key interactions we identified in
study one which are instruction, discussion and observation.
In our paper, we presented the positives, challenges,
and suggested improvements for the prototypes to
be able to support these three interactions.
Overall we found that the explicit merits for XR seem
to be related to discussion and observation interactions.
XR could augment supporting reflection and visualizing, for example,
passage of time with an example being visualizing how the sun moved
over the plot for planning, or by using libraries
of relevant 3D content during the tasks, which can
act as examples for the novice, for example, how
a plant might look like with pest damage.
A major challenge came from the limitations
on sensory engagement with the remote environment.
This affected the way that practitioners made
qualitative assessments, for example, about how the
soil might feel to touch.
From our findings, we suggest that
researchers could explore collaborative approaches between
the remote and on site users,
for example, when exploring objects handson.
We also discuss if XR can truly provide an
advantage over video and if simulating sensory information in
XR for the remote user would be useful or
even necessary. The final theme from our analysis is
on connecting interactions and emotional dimensions. During these sessions, the groups in our study consisted of
participants who are friends, family or colleagues.
Being able to interact with them by
discussing their individual or community motivations for
gardening and sharing personal experiences and stories
was important for the prototypes.
In study two, participants tried connecting in XR, for
example, by trying to share virtual objects as in this
picture, ... taking selfies with the virtual camera tool and
by using the drawing tool for doodles during discussions.
Errors made by novices during the gardening sessions
also helped connect and learn about each other.
We proposed a few design considerations for
XR in informal hobby setting that can
augment building what is called common ground
in communication theory through these connecting interactions.
This is important as it can have
positive effects on trust and effective collaboration.
The first is related to design approaches
that can highlight familiar sounds or sights
to encourage connecting with local ecosystem, or
highlight familiar objects linked to local historical
and environmental context to encourage sharing experiences
and stories around the same.
We also discuss other considerations to
augment connecting interactions in XR by
allowing practitioners to meaningfully express significance
of objects in the activity space.
And we discuss how supporting
realism for connecting interactions might
be different versus instructional interactions.
Gardens are a great example of
an informal hobby setting that stimulates,
encourages questions, inspires, and connects people.
We encourage HCI researchers to consider exploring this
and other hobby activities as compelling spaces to
explore design possibilities for informal XR.
We invite you to read our
full paper for more information.