The Role of Video in Personal Communication
•Download as PPTX, PDF•
1 like•673 views
Talk given at Microsoft Research Cambridge on how video fits under the umbrella of al available communication technologies used by friends and families.
Recommended
Recommended
More Related Content
Similar to The Role of Video in Personal Communication
Similar to The Role of Video in Personal Communication (20)
More from Daniel Strazzulla
More from Daniel Strazzulla (8)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
The Role of Video in Personal Communication
- 1. One App to Rule them All? The role of video in remote intimate communication by daniel strazzulla (daniel.strazzulla@inria.fr) Advisor: Wendy E. Mackay
- 2. Stanford HCI Master’s Software Engineer at IBM UX at Apple PhD at InSitu (Inria/CORDI) About Me 2about me Computer Mediated Communication Intimate Social Networks Research and Design Methods Interaction Design
- 3. Co-adaptation of Communication Channels for Key Privileged Relationships 3thesis work
- 4. Motivation Related Work Study Stories of Video in Remote Intimate Communication Who? When? How? What? Why? Conclusion and Future Work 4today
- 5. 5research questions How do people use communication technologies with different relationships? How do relationships change after the introduction of new technologies? What motivates the selection of specific communication tools for different relationships?
- 6. 6assumptions - richness “Face-to-face communicative behavior in the real world is not always an appropriate baseline for the evaluation of mediated communication.” [Dourish et al., 1993]
- 7. 7assumptions - richness “[Long Distance Relationship(LDR) assumptions] 1.Frequent Face-to-Face(FtF) communication is necessary for close personal relationships.” [Stafford, 2004] “Face-to-face communicative behavior in the real world is not always an appropriate baseline for the evaluation of mediated communication.” [Dourish et al., 1993]
- 8. 8assumptions - richness “Relationships develop more slowly online, but given time, CMC can be as personal as other modes.” [Stafford, 2004] “[Long Distance Relationship(LDR) assumptions] 1.Frequent Face-to-Face(FtF) communication is necessary for close personal relationships.” [Stafford, 2004] “Face-to-face communicative behavior in the real world is not always an appropriate baseline for the evaluation of mediated communication.” [Dourish et al., 1993]
- 9. 9assumptions - frequency “[The] frequency of interaction among family members is not directly associated with the satisfaction or quality of the relationship.” [Stafford, 2004]
- 10. 10ssumptions - one app for remote communication “Communicative modalities exist side by side, rather than in competition with each other.” [Dourish et al., 1993]
- 11. 11ssumptions - one app for remote communication “Though each relationship is unique in that each develops its own "miniculture" (Wilmot, 1995), these minicultures take place within a context of other networks.” [Stafford, 2004] “Communicative modalities exist side by side, rather than in competition with each other.” [Dourish et al., 1993]
- 12. 12one dedicated private channel
- 13. 13one flexible multimedia channel
- 15. 15hree places (Oldenburg, 1999)
- 16. 16three ‘email’ places @gmail @inria @hotmail
- 17. 17one email to rule them all? email ‘Same’ Technical Features Different Social Contexts Used for Different People @gmail @inria @hotmail
- 23. We are connected 23but how? to who? and why?
- 24. Medium text images audio video Bandwidth low high Synchronicity synchronous asynchronous Symmetry symmetric asymmetric Mobility fixed movable mobile Location Time Zone same overlap opposite Setting work home school commute Placement bedroom kitchen living room entrance Context awareness dumb passive active Interacti on With device input output Bet. devices peer client/server active passive Bet. users sharing collaborating monitoring Background gender age nationality culture Relationship coworkers couples families strangers Size wearable portable static small medium installation Content location status emotion weather Comm. Structure one to one one to many many to many Device Hardware Software 24design space
- 27. Key Privileged Relationships 27who do you talk to? “Intimate relationships differ from more casual associations in at least six specific ways: knowledge, caring, interdependence, mutuality, trust, and commitment.” [Miller, 2011]
- 28. 28study Study 2 Group 2 Group 3 2013 12 participants 8 nationalities 23 to 27 years old 2014 14 participants 11 nationalities 20 to 29 years old Semi-structured interview Semi-structured interview Questionnaire Diary Study Cultural Probe Survey Questionnaire Survey Group 1 2011 24 participants 11 nationalities 20 to 34 years old Semi- structured interview Study 1
- 29. 29study 2011 24 participants 11 nationalities 23 to 28 years old Semi- structured interview 2 hours collection of 4 weeks of communication data logs communication patterns motivation use of media relationships frequency Study 1 Goals Group 1
- 30. Group 2 Group 3 30study Study 2 2013 12 participants 8 nationalities 23 to 27 years old 2014 14 participants 11 nationalities 20 to 29 years old Semi-structured interview Semi-structured interview Questionnaire Diary Study Cultural Probe Survey Questionnaire Survey Overall Goals communication patterns motivation use of media relationships frequency
- 31. Group 2 Group 3 31study Study 2 2013 12 participants 8 nationalities 23 to 27 years old 2014 14 participants 11 nationalities 20 to 29 years old Semi-structured interview Semi-structured interview Questionnaire Diary Study Cultural Probe Survey Questionnaire Survey Overall Goals motivation and stories media and relationships disruption and frequency self- understanding availability and preferences communication patterns motivation use of media relationships frequency
- 35. 35study Surve y Mobile OS use Installed communication applications Privileged contacts within those applications Preference of applications for each medium
- 36. 36challenges and opportunities variability evolving trends sample sizes idealization self-awareness economics disruption extensive monitoring private data collection demographics self-report memory
- 38. medium technology knowledge access to technology quality usability bandwidth 38interview insights What motivates the selection of specific communication tools for different relationships?
- 39. medium technology knowledge access to technology quality usability bandwidth 39 What motivates the selection of specific communication tools for different relationships? habit cost trends fidelity belonging hardware productivity interview insights
- 40. medium technology knowledge access to technology quality usability bandwidth 40 What motivates the selection of specific communication tools for different relationships? time-zone relationship privacy accessibility features emoji stalking habit cost trends fidelity belonging hardware productivity interview insights
- 41. 41trends use of media by relationship
- 42. 42trends use of media by relationship
- 43. 43who uses video? “Rich media allow instantaneous feedback and multiple channels to allow a wide range of cues. In theory, the richer the media, the greater the potential to reduce ambiguity.” -Stafford, Laura (2004)
- 52. 52who Group Proxy “I don’t think I ever call my dad to talk with him without my mother, but I didn’t realize it before” -Mary “Parents share a single Skype account, so it’s more like calling home than either one of them” - Lola
- 53. 53who “With my grandma I only use video when my sister is there, I mean, only when my grandma is at my home and my sister is also there and has time.” -Andrea “We just sit and talk [when on video communication] and she would say comments like ‘I think you’re getting a little fatter’… My dad usually shows up on the video conversations” -Mary Group Proxy
- 54. 54what Topics Interactions "I would discuss something that needs discussion on WhatsApp, like if its more than 30 words, I wouldn’t, I’d wait and then talk about it on Skype” -Simon “A normal conversation: start with stories, then mundane daily things, talk about trips and computer tech support, it usually lasts an hour.” -Simon Weather, health, exams, travel , ’dumb trivial things’ and administrative issues are most popular topics “I don’t know what to talk about with my dad, so I just repeat the things my mom asked me about before putting him on the call” - Mary
- 55. 55what Topics Interactions “When Skyping with my friend I move all over my room, but when talking with my parents it’s a bit formal, I have to sit down on my desk and be ready” -Norman "Once, I chose to share screen using Skype, and then show them my pictures on my iPhoto gallery, but that was too slow because of internet speed, so I only did it once and I didn’t like it.” -Andrea "I use WhatsApp and Skype to share files with my GF, I use email to do it with my mom and I never really share files with my dad”- Simon
- 56. 56what Topics Interactions “I use Skype to call home, but it’s a little strange. I have my PC back home open all day, and I call it and if someone is in the room, we have the speakers loud, it’s like a phone… So I use Skype like a phone. I have also installed TeamViewer, a program for remote desktop, so that I sometimes call the PC and respond by myself… because if nobody is here, or I know somebody is here but in another room, it’s like checking if somebody is in my PC” - Ugo
- 57. 57when routines schedules "We[she and her boyfriend] Skype every night to fall asleep”. -Kate "We whatsapp during the day, since she is at work. Then we Skype at night." -David “Sundays are Skype days” -Pedro “We Skype in the evenings (video) everyday” -Oscar “Skype is always open” -Pedro “After work, around 8pm she’s back at home so we use video [GF]… We text each other first to see if available and then start the conversation, some sort of “virtual handshaking” like "can I call you” kinda thing, but for instance my father just calls, I find it annoying” - Simon
- 58. 58when routines schedules “We just know each other’s schedule because we talk a lot”- Oscar “My routine is: finish eating, then check if either is online, if they’re I call them, first one then the other” -Simon "To deal with TZ differences, I simply told them to never call me after their 3pm, because they would wake me up, and that worked. At the same time, I also don’t contact them during my daytime, because I realized that when I text or email my dad, I wake him up… and he replies to me at his 2 or 3am, so I made myself a rule to not contact them until 1pm here. We basically had to agree on periods of time where communicating is appropriate between us” -Andrea
- 59. 59how application devic e direction “Skype is for video” - Martín
- 60. 60how application devic e direction “I prefer using Skype on laptop since I don’t have to sync, I’m faster and the webcam works just fine” -Oscar Approximately half use it on mobile devices and other half on laptops “My girlfriend prefers to use Skype on her computer, since it’s more comfortable to type. However I prefer using it on my phone, so that I can use it in bed or while moving around” - Oscar
- 61. 61how application devic e direction " My mother feels like she has to talk to me.”- Ian "Mom doesn't calls me on Skype, she thinks I'm busy. I have to call her instead.”-Ian “With my mother and father I use Skype with them, they get super annoyed if I’m not there every night… With my dad is[the virtual check-in] every 24 hours, with my mom is every 3 or 4 days (they’re divorced)”-Simon "I only call landlines with my grandma, also with Skype credit. This is the only way I can communicate with her. Sometimes she tells me she would like to call me too, but she cannot since it’s very expensive and has no alternatives” - Andrea
- 62. 62why relationship context technology "My mom doesn't chat through Skype. Her understanding is that Skype is only f “I usually use weChat for video, is my main video app, however sometimes I use Skype is more serious or business partner, I use it for work related communications, or with my [now] American friends [colleagues]” -Peter “We’re [dad and I] always online on Skype, then we text each other to ask to for video conversation” -Oscar "Me and my sister just leave the Skype conversation open in the background while we're both at home, you know? to hangout… we really became friends after I moved away." -Jacky
- 63. 63why relationship context technology Despite being “friends” on Facebook, we [dad and I] try to avoid it as much as possible, that’s why we stick with Skype” -Roberto “We [dad and I] don’t use Facetime despite having Apple devices, because by now Skype has become part of the communication between us.” -Oscar "Mom got technological after I left” -Martín “I used Skype once and I hate it, the quality was terrible…Instead I use hangouts to talk with my parents, they use an add-on to their browser so it’s always there” -Roberto
- 64. 64why relationship context technology "I avoid using video when the house is a mess.” -Oscar “The alternative to call from one phone line to another, doesn’t exist between us[family], it’s just not an option, because it’s outrageously expensive, so we just find ways to communicate around Skype” -Andrea “There’s another problem, my mom is completely technology zero… they have a laptop there [mom and husband] and I installed Skype on it, told her to click on this icon for me to show up… The problem is that her husband is always using the computer, so I never know who is on the computer, even when I see her ‘online’… so I contact her directly on WhatsApp to make sure she’s the one online” -Simon
- 65. 65why relationship context technology "I sometimes video chat with my mom only because QQ forces us to, there is no voice only option. I don't think video is necessary. That's why sometimes we just exchange voice messages instead, which QQ allows. “ -Mary “I have this love/hate relationship with Skype… It always works, from a Network point of view, even if you can’t open Google, Skype still works, it’s always like that… If you have a network problems try using Skype… I like that, but when the time comes to call people,it’s sluggish, it crashes, I don’t like the UI… I use it on the iPad mostly, I feel more comfortable like that, I can use it while I’m eating” -Simon “On Skype messages arrive and don’t arrive” -Simon
- 66. 66ole of video in remote intimate communication “Rich media allow instantaneous feedback and multiple channels to allow a wide range of cues. In theory, the richer the media, the greater the potential to reduce ambiguity. In this view, FtF communication is the richest communication. This theory suggests that individuals make rational choices matching a particular medium to a specific objective and to the richness that tasks require.” [Stafford, 2004]
- 67. 67ole of video in remote intimate communication “Most available technologies however focus on the transmission of explicit information, which neglects the emotional and subtle communication so typical for close relationships” [Knobel et al., 2012]
- 68. 68video is a closed medium “The issue is one not only of technological design, but appropriate deployment and the flexibility to be able to shape the space.” [Dourish et al., 1993] “Field studies (e.g.,) show that video is merely treated as a “technical feature.” It remains left to people to appropriate the feature, that is, to make it work as a social practice.” [Ames et al., 2010]
- 70. 70reasons for any media symmetry proxy topics interactions routines settings schedules application device direction relationship context technology medium technology knowledge access to technology quality usability bandwidth accessibility features emoticons stalking time-zone privacy habit cost trends fidelity belonging hardware productivity
- 71. 71ole of video in remote intimate communication Technology RelationshipContext
Editor's Notes
- Over the last four years we’ve studied how close people communicate and interact at a distance. Today, I’ll be presenting our findings related to the role of video in remote intimate communication.
- But first, a little bit about myself.
- My more specific interest is in … which the main focus of my PhD. thesis
- This is, roughy, the agenda for today.
- Our key question is why people choose different technologies, or applications, when communicating at a distance with those they love. We hope to find the answer to this by studying how people use, and coadapt and understand their use of current communication technologies. But first I want to address some topics that have been talked about in this conference.
- Often times, we make the assumption that the motivation to use one technology over another is simple: the closest we are to someone the more we want to use higher fidelity media and in higher frequency, since this is the closest we’d have to face-to-face interaction. However we have to remember that aiming to replace FtF through CMC is not always the best choice.
- In fact, social studies have shown frequent FtF interaction is not necessary for close personal relationships.
- Even more, it’s been shown that you can have greatly personal and intimate relationships without ever having FtF contact.
- Similarly, there has been found evidence showing that frequency is not always a determining factor of relationship satisfaction within close family members.
- There’s also the assumption that one particular medium is better suited to convey intimacy, such as video, while in fact different media work together and meet different, but equally valuable needs.
- Similarly, there also assumptions on how ideal ‘intimate’ relationships should be, and how they should communicate.
- I think this is interesting because when it comes to the industry, there seems to be a big push for applications that act as a single communication channel between couples, failing altogether to consider their own relationships micro-culture and pre-existing communications network. Becoming a chore rather than a tool the users can appropriate to suit their relationship and current communication practices. So far, I’ve yet to meet anyone who uses any of these, and I’ve been interviewing remote couples for 4 years now.
- On the broader aspect of communication technologies, there seems to be a goal to offer as many different levels of richness, meaning different media. And this is great.
- However, sometimes the reasons why we choose to use different communication technologies are, surprisingly, unrelated to their technological properties.
- Let’s start with a simple example, using and old but current technology: email. Oldernburg argues that our lives happen primarily on three places: home, work and community. And that each one of them fundamentally changes the way we behave. And you may be wandering…well, how does this relate to email?
- Well it turns out that, at least for me, I have different email accounts for these ‘places’. Why? Because it talk to different people with them, I want to be reached by different people and different times, or I just don’t want to be reached. Funny, I use one communication technology for the sole purpose of never being there… (hotmail)
- Yet this is interesting, because beyond the specific service providers, email is still email, and offers (more or less) the same product features. The decision on when to use which is not based on technology, but based on contexts and relationships.
- It’s all about the details and multiple intersections of technology, contexts and relationships
- What if I’d try to argue why we pick within these apps?
- Or even better, within those apps and these hardware devices?
- that of course are all connected through the cloud
- and can be mixed and matched in so many different ways…
- Well, it becomes too much. While it is clear that now we are connected, I want to understand the details on how, to who and why?
- In fact, I created this design space based on my favorite papers in the field. I love how throughout we are, studying specific factors and understanding how they affect our communication. However, if in order to understand the user’s motivation to communicate with their KPRs, without any constrain, I had to come up with a study that would tackle most, if not all, of these factors.
- We fit this previous work on our model of computer mediated communication.
- Therefore, our our study goal was to understand how and why our participants communicated with their KPRs through any technology, under any of their intimate contexts.
- However, for our particular study we decided to study those who matter the most. Beyond generalizing by friends or family, aiming for those very few key privileged relationships in our lives with whom we spend most of our time communicating at a distance. This is a visualization of ‘Brian’ one of our participants. It depicts how different media are used by different relationships, and how most of her remote communication happens with a small group of people: mom, gf, close friends.
- We ran two studies from 2011 to 2014, with three different participant groups. In total we had 50 participants from 23 different nationalities.
- For Study 1 we held long semi-structured interviews and also collected 4 weeks of personal communication data from the participants devices. Our goals were…
- For study 2, we tried a different, multi-method approach, using different techniques. While we shared the same overall goals of study one…
- we also had specific goals for every task.
- During the interviews we search for detailed stories of use of comm tech with KPRs. Immediately after them, we asked participants to fill this questionnaire, in order to get data on any relationship or technology that wasn't covered in the interview, that we could also compare between participants. This form asked which media and applications you use with each KPR, and from which device.
- The diary study took place over 12 days. Our 12 participants were SVs at a big technology conference, which took place during days 4-8. Every night at 9pm they were reminded individually to answer this task online Our goal was to have a different source of data on their use of technology by relationship, to compare with interview and questionnaire, and to study the effects of disruption caused by extraordinary circumstances in personal communication.
- Then we uses a cultural probe technique to ask participants to draw their own understanding of their intimate social network. To help them, we summarized the data from their previous tasks and gave each a personalized list of relationships and technologies they’ve mentioned using in the past.
- Finally, we asked to fill an online survey, which doesn’t fit here, asking them for their mobile os, installed comm apps, and which of their KPRs they’ve mentioned so far they have in each comm app. Our goal was to see if any particular application had a higher concentration of KPR contacts, or if there was any trend. We also asked them to rank from 1 to 5 the applications they use.
- Now before I go on into the study results I want to talk a bit about field quantitative field work. As many of you may know, doing quantitative field studies is tricky. There’s lot’s of variability, noise factors, privacy issues, idealization issues and so on. We know the dangers of self-report in diary studies and the dangers of small n’s in statistics… However, by embracing all these sources of noise, pursuing a multi-method approach, and aiming for a high n (50 is kinda big on field work), we were able to bask in incredibly rich data that allowed us to drill deep into our participants motivations and use of communication technologies.
- An example of this was this fascinating phenomena of shame and denial of use of social media in KPR communication. During the interview most participants denied and use of FB to talk to KPRs, however use of social media was pretty significant on the diary study and questionnaires data. When pointed to this contradiction were from defensive to sincerely shocked, leading into interesting additional conversations on their motivations and fears.
- Throughout our study we came with over 20 categories of reasons why people chose one comm. app over the other.
- These are just some of them.
- Now, it is important to highlight that some these are also known factors that has been previously studied in the CMC literature, some are new paths to explore.
- Here’s the aggregate data from all studies, normalized by those who fit under each category, since during our study out of the 47 participants we had 21 single ones and 15 without siblings. We can see that couples just use a lot everything. With parents we saw a trend of intent to use video but being forced to downgrade to audio because of network issues. However, we also saw several examples of participants not wanting to use video, but being forced into it because of their parents. Which was, in truth, one of the key learning of these study. If you want someone to use your application, design it for someone they love and they’ll force them to use it.
- Moving on. this charts adds frequency data from study 1 log data, we can see couples not only use all media , they use it all the time, whereas with parents there’s a preference for high fidelity communication, and email.
- What about use of video over time? We saw no significant or steady trend, but saw consistency over how much it is actually used. However, I’d rather move now to the stories, which we’ve organized by categories representing different reasons why people used video in our study.
- I’ll add zoom interaction to these…
- 0 is not used, 5 is love it and use it all the time, 1 is have it installed but never use it. The point here is a) every HAS Skype installed, and 65 % love it, 12% almost love it.. and so on… The second place is Hangouts, with lot’s of not installed, 1,2, and 3s… something like that.
- So, what does this mean for video in KPR communication? From both our qualitative and quantitative data learned that the majority of our participants rely on video to communicate with their loved ones, for reasons similar to those found in previous work. However, video communication is possible because of the support offered by other media and communication channels, it’s unlikely that it would be as effective on its own. Also, while video is great in communicating facial detail and expressions, at the same time is too explicit, leaving no room for ambiguity or subtleness that is better expressed through other media such as text or images.
- We found that different relationships have different need for video, for example between parents and couples, even if both use it the most, on parents the need for video comes mostly from their end whereas the need video in couples is more balanced. Also, while video is great in communicating facial detail and expressions, at the same time is too explicit, leaving no room for ambiguity or subtleness that is better expressed through other media such as text or images.
- One of the main limitations of video is that is confined to a couple of closed applications, locked away from the user control. Contrast this with text or images, where the user can take their data from one application or device to another, save it, tweak it, resend it. Text can be symmetric or asymmetric, synchronous or asynchronous, public or private, one-to-one or one-to-many, used from virtually any device or application. Text is inherently more appropriate-able by the user, whereas video is far from their hands.
- which brings us back to the bigger picture, beyond video. While talking about video we’ve mentioned some factors or reasons behinds the use, or non-use, of video. However in the bigger scope of this study we’ve found more.
- In order to answer our question on how people coadapt and choose communication technologies for KPR communication, we’ve coded qualitative data and analyzed quantitative one, and came up with a set of three main motivations our participants use to determine how to communicate.
- As an extension of our model of CMC, we found those three reasons to be
- Desire for availability, closeness and control. Regarding control, participants preferred applications they could use on different devices and environments and that could handle multiple media. Closeness represents the need to be closer, or not, to certain people and the effort involved in achieving this closeness. This can easily be misinterpreted as high fidelity, but for example one participants chooses to write letters to her grandma, which takes more time and effort, but makes them ‘closer’. Availability is the decisions we make to be available to our KPRs. Examples of these are parents who learned a specific technology to stay in touch, and therefore be available, or parents who installed specific applications to talk with their sons only, or even participants who bought new hardware devices. We’d like to talk more about this, but that’d be the topic for a whole new talk at an upcoming conference if we’re lucky. thanks for coming, do you have any questions?