arXiv subjects

Amy Hurst

Publications and source records attributed to Amy Hurst.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2002

Eavesdropping on Electronic Guidebooks: Observing Learning Resources in Shared Listening Environments

We describe an electronic guidebook, Sotto Voce, that enables visitors to share audio information by eavesdropping on each other's guidebook activity. We have conducted three studies of visitors using electronic guidebooks in a historic house: one study with open air audio played through speakers and two studies with eavesdropped audio. An analysis of visitor interaction in these studies suggests that eavesdropped audio provides more social and interactive learning resources than open air audio played through speakers.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2002

Sotto Voce: Exploring the Interplay of Conversation and Mobile Audio Spaces

In addition to providing information to individual visitors, electronic guidebooks have the potential to facilitate social interaction between visitors and their companions. However, many systems impede visitor interaction. By contrast, our electronic guidebook, Sotto Voce, has social interaction as a primary design goal. The system enables visitors to share audio information - specifically, they can hear each other's guidebook activity using a technologically mediated audio eavesdropping mechanism. We conducted a study of visitors using Sotto Voce while touring a historic house. The results indicate that visitors are able to use the system effectively, both as a conversational resource and as an information appliance. More surprisingly, our results suggest that the technologically mediated audio often cohered the visitors' conversation and activity to a far greater degree than audio delivered through the open air.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2001

The Guidebook, the Friend, and the Room: Visitor Experience in a Historic House

In this paper, we describe an electronic guidebook prototype and report on a study of its use in a historic house. Supported by mechanisms in the guidebook, visitors constructed experiences that had a high degree of interaction with three entities: the guidebook, their companions, and the house and its contents. For example, we found that most visitors played audio descriptions played through speakers (rather than using headphones or reading textual descriptions) to facilitate communication with their companions.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2001

Tap Tips: Lightweight Discovery of Touchscreen Targets

We describe tap tips, a technique for providing touch-screen target location hints. Tap tips are lightweight in that they are non-modal, appear only when needed, require a minimal number of user gestures, and do not add to the standard touchscreen gesture vocabulary. We discuss our implementation of tap tips in an electronic guidebook system and some usability test results.

cs.HC↗