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.

Strong social connections permeate one’s daily life. With the numerous means available, these connections can easily dominate one’s communications, though one only wants to convey and have a sense of presence in each other’s lives. Portal Frame fosters this feeling of connection between individuals while keeping the amount of active communication that must take place to a minimum. Individuals are provided a means to glimpse the lives of intimate friends through a well known and established physical medium, the picture frame.

Tony Bergstrom and Karrie Karahalios, Communicating More than Nothing. Extended Abstracts of CHI 2006.

Abstract

In this work, we create social visualizations of aural group conversation. These visualizations are tailored to a table setting. Examples of such settings are a family sitting about a table eating dinner or colleagues sitting about a table in a meeting. The form of the visualization is highly coupled to its function. People sit about the table structure and see their conversation visualized on the table surface as they speak. Using this physical structure, we present two graphical table interfaces. The first interface depicts the rhythm and conversational patterns in table top interaction; the second visualization extends this theme by incorporating a voting mechanism to highlight agreement and disagreement in spoken interaction. The visualizations evolve over time to create an evocative, graphical, interactive snapshot of the entire conversation within that table space.

Karrie G. Karahalios and Tony Bergstrom, Visualizing audio in group table conversation. IEEE TableTop2006.