Next week Vote and Be Heard: Adding Back-Channel Cues to Social Mirrors in Uppsala Sweden. It’s a work about how providing anonymous feedback seems to help people assert themselves in conversation, and generally be more satisfied with the conversation. If you’re going or are there, I present Thursday morning in the 10:30 session.

I’m excited to go, though I’m not looking forward to finishing up my CHI paper in my spare time. I remember, Interact ‘07. Copacabana beach. The Window between me and the beach…. and my unfinished CHI paper. Here we go again. Though what I saw of Rio, I did enjoy.

A witty little title Eric and I came up with to describe how comments in blogs tend to agree with the original poster. Between the two of us we labeled hundreds of blog posts to test that idea, and published a paper at HICSS demonstrating most comments do in fact agree with the original post.

Eric even built a model to detect the characteristics of an echo. In anycase, if this entry gets any comments, I’ll delete any negative ones. :)

Blogs are Echo Chambers: Blogs are Echo Chambers. HICSS 2009.

Abstract

In this paper, we look at projects leveraging human knowledge and understanding in computer systems for extracting conversational topics. Tasks like speech recognition are difficult for computers, but simple for people engaged in conversation. This task is a cornerstone of transcription, speech summarization, and topic recognition. We propose using tabletop interaction to enhance the computer’s basic categorization. We then describe how the results of tabletop interaction help to create meaningful archival visualizations and personal reflecting tools.

Tony Bergstrom and Karrie Karahalios. Conversation Clusters: Human-Computer Dialog for Topic Extraction. Work In Progress CHI 2008.

Abstract

In this work, we present the social data analysis of group interaction as a tool to influence behavior. People are curious about other people and how they compare. By selecting and visualizing a live data stream meaningful to a community, the community becomes more insightful and aware of itself. Individuals and the community at large adapt and change accordingly. We present our own work and other examples to motivate the further study of this introspective social data analysis.

Tony Bergstrom and Karrie Karahalios. Seeing Ourselves among Others. Social Data Analysis Workshop CHI 2008.

Abstract 

In this work we describe the iterative design process in the evolution of Conversation Votes, an augmented tabletop visualization that creates new backchannels in collocated interaction. This work presents a reflection of interactionwith direct user feedback in the form of anonymous voting. The design of Conversation Votes has evolved as the subtle cues provided in the interface influenced conversation behavior.  We discuss how the interface influenced human interaction, and what influenced successive iterations of the interface. Finally, we present the current version of the Conversation Votes table interface.

Tony Bergstrom and Karrie Karahalios Visualizing Co-located Conversation Feedback. IEEE TableTop2007

Abstract

Using audio visualization, we seek to demonstrate how natural interaction is augmented with the addition of interaction history. Our Conversation Clock visualization captures and represents audio in a persistent and meaningful representation to provide social cues not available in an otherwise ephemeral conversation. In this paper we present user study evaluation of the Conversation Clock as utilized by familiar groups and demonstrate how individuals use the salient cues to evaluate their own interaction.

Tony Bergstrom and Karrie Karahalios Seeing More: Visualizing Audio Cues. Proceedings of INTERACT 2007.

Abstract

Isochords is a visualization of music that aids in the classification of musical structure. The Isochords visualization highlights the consonant intervals between notes and common chords in music. It conveys information about interval quality, chord quality, and the chord progression synchronously during playback of digital music. Isochords offers listeners a means to grasp the underlying structure of music that, without extensive training, would otherwise remain unobserved or unnoticed. In this paper we present the theory of the Isochords structure, the visualization, and comments from novice and experienced users.

Tony Bergstrom, Karrie Karahalios, and John C. Hart Isochords: Visualizing Structure in Music Proceedings of Graphics Interface 2007.

Abstract 

In this work we describe Conversation Votes, a visualization to create new backchannels in conversation and augment collocated interaction. We expand the idea of a social mirror, a reflection of interaction, to incorporate direct user feedback in the form of anonymous voting. By capturing user input, the mirror becomes more demonstrative of context as participants add their interpretation into the visualization. The end result produces a visualization to provide a more accurate reflection of interaction and create flags of salient moments in conversation. Urbana Champaign

Tony Bergstrom and Karrie Karahalios, Conversation Votes: Enabling Anonymous Cues. Extended Abstracts of CHI 2007.

Abstract

Aural conversation is ephemeral by nature. The interaction history of conversation fades as the present moment demands the attention of participants. In this paper, we explore the nature of group interaction by augmenting aural conversation with a persistent visualization of audio input. This visualization, Conversation Clock, displays individual contribution via audio input and provides a corresponding social mirror over the course of interaction. This paper describes the implementation of Conversation Clock, provides observations on an initial pilot study, and outlines the future progression of this research.

Tony Bergstrom and Karrie Karahalios, Conversation Clock: Visualizing audio patterns in groups. HICSS 2007.

Abstract

Using audio visualization, we seek to demonstrate how natural interaction is augmented with the addition of interaction history. Our visualizations capture and represent audio in a persistent and meaningful representation to provide social cues not available in an otherwise ephemeral conversation. Incorporating these visualizations into the surrounding environment, our cues are integrated directly into the interaction, merging the physical and virtual worlds into one unified experience. In two pro jects, Conversation Clock and Chit Chat Club, we utilize varying degrees of visualized aural history to present evaluative views of interaction by creating reflections of local interactions and conveying presence to remote spaces. We refer to these as social mirrors and social proxies, respectively. In this thesis we examine the development process of our social visualizations, user study evaluations of the Conversation Clock with familiar groups, an exploration of interaction in the Chit Chat Club as a part of an interactive museum installation.

Anthony David Bergstrom, Visualization of Audio Augmenting Social Interactions. Master’s Thesis. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, December 2006.