We present OpenMic, a video conferencing tool that supports 2D spatial cues for turn-taking
Turn-taking describes the flow of participation among speakers in conversation over time
We can imagine two speakers alternating their speaking turns with each other
However, multi-party conversational structure is much more complicated
When the third speaker is introduced, the next turn is no longer guaranteed to be a specific speaker
For example, this user can either talk to a user or address someone's point
or speak to the whole group
what made it even more challenging in remote meetings is that
current video conferencing systems lack the support of subtle visual cues such as someone wanting
a turn of talk or whether other group members are paying attention to a potential intention to talk
There were some media space work utilized some proximity cues such as head-turning and directional
gaze cues to support turn-taking, however, such systems require specialized equipment ,
which is not desirable in the current trend of remote work that relies on everyday devices such as laptops
what is most close to our work is the 2D virtual spaces that support proximity cues
For example, Gather Town support users to form a group based on their distances
Such 2D virtual spaces were used mostly for leave-taking and approaching
to improve user experiences into and out of conversations
For example, recent work explores the benefit of using proximity cues for conversation transitions
during different moments of meetings ,which can be pre-, post- or during meeting for social purposes
though there's work that utilized proximity cues to support conversation transitions
There is a need for understanding proximity metaphors in a focused group for turn-taking needs
Hence, we look at the proximity theory to describes how social relationships can be
affected by the user's spatial organization such as forming different interpersonal distances
We draw two notions from the proxemic theory to design new mechanisms for turn-taking in
multi-party remote meetings
First, supporting fixed and semi-fix feature space
We are in a material world
The fixed/ semi-fixed feature space describes how furniture and built space can help and take
part in our opportunities to enact our social relationships
For instance, rearranging tables can affect how people have conversations around them
and another example can be the lecture halls
that lay out this social spatial order regarding who is empowered to talk and who is listening
In this work we focus on the fixed feature space
As you can see from the video, both users are moving
their videos from the peripheral area to the central area which we named the virtual floor
the Floor Edge defines the control of unmuting and muting microphone
The whole view is the same for everyone
so that everyone can be aware of their spatial relationship with each other
the Virtual Floor presents our first interaction concept as it serves as the fixed feature space
for users to be aware of others intention to talk and define a boundary for managing conversations
We have this open floor area where users can join it freely by moving their video
on and off the floor to take speaking turns.
we consider the increasing group size requires more moderation
so that we create this Moderated Mode with a thick boundary around the floor
when the user initiates this moderated mode, the Floor Edges serves as a close boundary
and all the users on the floor will become moderators
when the audience move her video feed
to the boundary the speaker can click her video feed to grant access to speaking
the second notion is the perceptual cues for proximity this can be understood as moving
closer to show intention to engage with others, which is the interpersonal distance
In particular, the perception of proximity distance can include image size
for example, MirrorSpace shows how people lean towards the interface
to show that they are intimate to each other
Hence, we designed the Malleable Mirrors, where we simultaneously transform the position and
scale of the video feed when the user is on the floor
The malleable mirror can also be reshaped
when the user move from on-floor to off-floor here when the user is off-floor, we want to
maximize the view of the participant's face and minimize the space to the periphery of the floor
and the rectangular shape is supported for conveying hand gestures for speakers
Moreover, we support users to rehearse their behavior without being observed by others
For example, if this user drag his video feed, without a mouse-up event, others will not see his behavior
We want to understanding study is how people will use Virtual Floor and Malleable Mirrors
to interact with each other
and how these features enable novel turn-taking behaviors
we conducted studies in four-person group and eight-person group
the eight person group will first break out into two four-person groups
and they will have some warm-up tasks
and a survival task where they need to share their own choices with the shared screens
and negotiate and collaborate with their remote peers
The two four-person groups
will later convene to an eight-person group and present their group choices to another group
and there would be a Q&A session where the audience group could ask questions
here I present
several key findings of the study. The first set of findings is about the use of virtual floor
Participants were aware of their personal space when on the floor, as you can see from the figure
when the user is switching from off-floor to on-floor, we observed the behaviors that they
will move to the space first and reserve their video there temporarily without going further
During the focus group interview, users mentioned that they consider the floor as an open space
for more people so that they can leave spaces for others
In contrast, when off the virtual floor,
we observed that the participants tended to stay at the initial entrance position and sometimes
some of them will overlap with each other without noticing
they did not move their video feeds
unless they intended to take turns on floor
during the focus group interview they mentioned that
they were like taking seats in the dimmed area or around it which may indicate that the structured
video placement like Zoom might be suitable for audiences. However, they appreciate the flexibility
of OpenMic's unstructured video placement when it came to taking turns, allowing them
to resize and reposition their video.
The group size may affect the use of floor boundary.
In four-person groups, participants keep themselves on the boundary
and maintain the conversation flow for a long time
While in the eight person group, they kept entering and leaving the floor to actively engage in the conversation.
During the focus group interview, a participant mentioned that his interpretation of
the space in the eight-person group is like standing up in the classroom
The second set of findings is about utilizing malleable mirrors to enact turn-taking behaviors
First, users use relative position for time taking. Off floor participants took the floor using
the shortest path to the virtual floor. This shows the turn-taking pattern where audiences reversely
address the whole presenter group via the boundary of the virtual floor
In contrast , two participants moved to the boundary in close relation to someone to address the person
This shows the difference between addressing the group and addressing the individual
Resizing the video can also convey the intent to hand over the floor
In this figure, the speaker
tried to hand over the floor verbally with
"I guess if someone agrees we can put 1 and 4 and the sea cushion, right? That will work?"
and other group members responded by nodding their heads
To reinforce his intention, the speaker moved closer to the center of the floor and
enlarged his video feed saying "Yeah? Or I would just put it in the sheet."
Other group members started to enter the virtual floor
and contribute their ideas
during the interview it was mentioned
that initially some audience members did not fully understand the speaker's intent to hand
over the floor however they later picked up on the visual cue of the speaker enlarging
his video feed and understood his point
To sum up our findings, we have identified four types of turn-taking zones
that users utilize to partition the virtual space during multi-party video meetings
These zones include the Audience Zone Near-Edge Zone, Transition zone, and Center Zone
These zones play a crucial role in facilitating gradual engagement with other participants in the meeting
The near Edge Zone serves as a temporal peripheral zone
where participants position their video feeds on a smaller scale closer to the boundary.
Movement in the Transition Zone reveals diverse and rich interactions
that are categorized by "subtle" proxemic cues
As participants move across the Center Zone, it signifies a change in conversation state
which some active speakers may utilize to take control of the conversation
when used in moderation, relative position can
serve as a cue for addressing either an individual or a group during the meeting
In summary, utilizing proximity metaphors can support better conversation flows
The use of (Virtual)Floor and Malleable Mirrors can enable central attentive space
users utilize the size and position
of Malleable Mirrors to enact different speaker roles
Thank you for your attention!