Lessons from the lighthouse: collaboration in a shared mixed reality system

Brown, B., MacColl, I., Chalmers, M., Galani, A., Randell, C. and Steed, A. (2003) Lessons from the lighthouse: collaboration in a shared mixed reality system. In: Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, 5-10 April 2003, pp. 577-584. ISBN 1581136307 (doi: 10.1145/642611.642711)

Abstract

Museums attract increasing numbers of online visitors along with their conventional physical visitors. This paper presents a study of a mixed reality system that allows web, virtual reality and physical visitors to share a museum visit together in real time. Our system allows visitors to share their location and orientation, communicate over a voice channel, and jointly navigate around a shared information space. Results from a study of 34 users of the system show that visiting with the system was highly interactive and retained many of the attractions of a traditional shared exhibition visit. Specifically, users could navigate together, collaborate around objects and discuss exhibits. These findings have implications for non-museum settings, in particular how location awareness is a powerful resource for collaboration, and how 'hybrid objects' can support collaboration at-a-distance.

• Item Type: Conference Proceedings
• Additional Information: © ACM, 2003. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/642611.642711
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Chalmers, Professor Matthew
• Authors: Brown, B., MacColl, I., Chalmers, M., Galani, A., Randell, C., and Steed, A.
• Subjects: Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Computing Science
• Publisher: ACM Press
• ISBN: 1581136307
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2003 ACM Press
• First Published: First published in Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher including additional information statement.