Towards Concise Gaze Sharing

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Christian Schlösser

Towards Concise Gaze Sharing

Dissertation

Fakultät für

Mathematik und

Informatik

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F ERN U NIVERSITÄT IN H AGEN

D

ISSERTATION

Towards Concise Gaze Sharing

by

CHRISTIANSCHLÖSSER

A thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Dr.-Ing. at the

FACULTY OFMATHEMATICS ANDCOMPUTERSCIENCE

September 2019

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I

Abstract

Remote collaboration lacks nonverbal cues, which are a vital part of co-located group work, such as following gaze. The domain of gaze sharing aims to compensate for the disadvantage by displaying peers’ eye movements to indicate their visual attention.

That is known to increase the amount of a group’s joint attention, which can be crucial for the efficiency of collaboration. The visual overlays of eye movements, though, require the use of strict What-You-See-Is-What-I-See (WYSIWIS) interfaces and are considered a distracting visualization even for the gaze path of a single collaborator. Small groups and non-strict WYSIWIS interfaces, however, are common circumstances found in synchronous remote collaboration. A possible solution is to detect the current context, e.g., task characteristics, collaboration closeness, and eye movements, to display concise gaze sharing representations within the groupware, which are then not affected by the limitations of traditional eye movement overlays. To that end, the thesis aims to propose and evaluate a customized design science research approach by applying it to three case studies, which also serves for contributing design knowledge.

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III

List of Figures

1.1 Gaze sharing for remote collaboration using a real-time and spatial-

based representation in the form of a gaze cursor. . . 2

1.2 A concise gaze sharing component is integrated into the initial groupware that connects eye movements and collaboration closeness at run-time to display context-relevant gaze representations. . . 4

1.3 Thesis aims . . . 4

1.4 Graphical representation of the thesis outline . . . 5

2.1 Classification scheme for gaze sharing setups . . . 10

2.2 Classification of the gaze sharing setups in related work . . . 11

3.1 DSR Knowledge Contribution Framework . . . 20

3.2 DSR Research Framework and the DSR Cycles . . . 20

3.3 The Design Science Research Knowledge Base . . . 21

3.4 The evolution of knowledge via design cycles . . . 22

3.5 Concise Gaze Sharing (CGS) Design Approach . . . 23

3.6 Descriptive and prescriptive knowledge in the CGS Design Approach 26 3.7 Gaze awareness design characteristics and their potential attributes . . 27

4.1 Classification of the first case study . . . 32

4.2 Overview of the turtle puzzle game board . . . 33

4.3 Eye-tracking related considerations for the animation design: Saccades jump over objects (left), single fixation on puzzle piece (center) versus multiple adjacent fixations on one object (right). . . 35

4.4 Semantic outliers (orange) on the left puzzle part . . . 36

4.5 State machine showing the object-highlighting animation transitions for a single area of interest (puzzle part or dropzone) . . . 37

4.6 First draft (left) and final gaze awareness design (right). The same visual scheme is also used for dropzones. . . 38

4.7 Example groupware modification for web applications . . . 39

4.8 The three gaze conditions used in the first case study . . . 39

4.9 Easing the gaze cursors motion with animations distorts the gaze path. 40 4.10 Comparison of shared gaze amount across the three conditions (n=29) 45 4.11 Shared gaze interval found with constrained optimization . . . 46

4.12 Relative time-spent in five shared gaze interval clusters . . . 47

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LIST OF FIGURES VIII 4.13 Time shift effect demonstration: time shift reveals gaze following/lead-

ing but can penalize actual shared gaze sequences. . . 48

4.14 Time shift example: matching vs. random recordings . . . 48

4.15 Plots of shared gaze amount of all groups when time-shifting recordings to reveal gaze following . . . 49

4.16 Comparison of gaze following/leading timing in the gaze conditions . 50 4.17 Typical patterns found during mutual engagement across conditions . 51 5.1 Classification of the second case study . . . 58

5.2 Standard-chat-environment used in the prerequisite step to gather detailed eye movement and interaction data of dyads and triads . . . . 62

5.3 Custom replay tool that displays multiple users . . . 64

5.4 UEQ results (n=40) of a standard-chat-environment . . . 66

5.5 Common reading pattern . . . 68

5.6 Heatmap showing N=46528 saccades recorded on chat messages, which are clustered to grid cells of 10x10px. . . 68

5.7 Parallel utterance composition (Pattern A) . . . 69

5.8 User B does not refer to the last utterance in the chat log, but to the last one perceived (Pattern B). . . 69

5.9 Chatter B chunks message and ignores incoming messages (Pattern C). 70 5.10 Groupware modification of the gaze-enabled chat interface in form of a data flow diagram and a state machine . . . 72

5.11 Hit-detection illustration . . . 74

5.12 Binary decision tree used for reading detection . . . 75

5.13 Illustration of the heuristic read-detection-algorithm . . . 76

5.14 The CGS-enhanced chat interface Gaze-Chat v1 using icon-based gaze awareness representation . . . 79

5.15 Gaze-Chat v1 heatmap of a random participant . . . 84

5.16 Re-reading animation draws attention . . . 85

5.17 UEQ comparison of the first design cycle: SCE vs. GCv1 . . . 86

5.18 Increased awareness of the interlocutor’s activities . . . 87

5.19 Out-of-order turn example . . . 87

5.20 Withdrawing a message to facilitate chat log coherence . . . 88

5.21 The “missed message” pop-up is seen by the participant (1) and then used to find the unseen message (2). . . 89

5.22 Icon-based interface for groups of three . . . 92

5.23 Gaze Chat v2 with a figurative representation of gaze awareness cues: reading progress bars . . . 96

5.24 Procedure of the second design cycle’s evaluation step . . . 100

5.25 Impact of face-to-face time on the conversation tone . . . 101

5.26 Perceived contribution balance . . . 101

5.27 Comparison of the interfaces’ efficiency regarding their usefulness for a discussion . . . 102

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LIST OF FIGURES IX

5.28 Perception of the track loss notification . . . 102

5.29 Willingness to share reading data . . . 103

5.30 UEQ comparison of the second design cycle: SCE vs. GCv2 . . . 103

5.31 Heatmap showing the fixation distribution on the GCv2 . . . 104

5.32 Participant ensuring that the reading progress bar works as shown in the onboarding video . . . 105

5.33 Using the own reading progress bar as a bookmark to find (1) and then read the first unread message (2). . . 106

5.34 Understanding of group activities . . . 106

5.35 Deriving a message’s context . . . 107

5.36 Screenshot from Alexander’s perspective . . . 107

5.37 Concept: Interpretation of the gaze awareness in chat to derive their semantic in relation to the chat log. . . 109

6.1 Classification of the third case study . . . 116

6.2 Shared whiteboard interface showing the initial concept map used for the prerequisite step . . . 119

6.3 The three conditions used in the third case study (left: no gaze, center: gaze cursor, right: gaze cursor that fades to green on shared gaze) . . . 119

6.4 Comparison of shared gaze amount across the three conditions (four dyads per condition). The annotations show the conducted statistical tests (two-sided t-test) with Cohen’s d. . . 122

6.5 List of 20 found distinct work couplings found during the concept mapping task . . . 123

6.6 Basic building blocks to describe work couplings . . . 123

6.7 RainbowCC framework: Adaptation of the Rainbow framework for co-construction activities. . . 124

6.8 3D visualizations of two collaborating dyads (no-gaze and gaze cursor), which were annotated using the RainbowCC framework. . . 127

6.9 Design proposal: Unobtrusive gaze awareness representation to facilitate the convergence of visual attention . . . 129

6.10 Design proposal: Object-highlighting for a concept mapping task . . . 129

7.1 Overview of the gaze sharing setups of this thesis . . . 141

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List of Tables

4.1 Design characteristics of the object-highlighting . . . 38

4.2 ICC between two raters for the Quality of Collaboration rating scheme 44 4.3 Results: Quality of Collaboration . . . 44

4.4 Design knowledge contributions of the first case study . . . 53

5.1 Conversation topics used in the prerequisite step . . . 65

5.2 Design iterations of icon-based gaze awareness representations . . . . 77

5.3 Design characteristics of the icon-based gaze awareness . . . 78

5.4 Design iterations of figurative gaze awareness representations . . . 93

5.5 Design characteristics of the figurative gaze awareness . . . 95

5.6 Main interview questions asked after both trials . . . 97

5.7 Additional interview questions asked after the second trial . . . 98

5.8 Gaze-Chat v2 specific interview questions . . . 98

5.9 Design knowledge contributions of the second case study . . . 111

6.1 Design knowledge contributions of the third case study . . . 128

7.1 Compliance to the seven DSR guidelines . . . 137

7.2 Overview of design knowledge contributions . . . 139

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Chapter 1

Introduction

Imagine working remotely and trying to finish a joint project with your colleagues on time, be it some text, a presentation, or a diagram. The coordination of these activities – “Who is doing what and when? Who is focusing on what?” – can go from being a difficult take to absolute chaos. You then postpone the work until your next face-to-face meeting; the work will be less burdensome when you are sitting next to each other.

Supporting group work with computers provides numerous technological possibilities to make collaboration more efficient, be it in a co-located or remote setting.

Functionalities such as copy and paste, undo and redo, and the easy access to information or an identical and unobstructed view of the workspace reduce manual labor and simplify the process of achieving a common goal. However, especially with regard to the latter, the transformation of the physical workspace to a digital one that enables separate views for each collaborator also has some disadvantages. Activities performed by users with their own view on the workspace are then hidden away from the other collaborators. But without this knowledge, it is nearly impossible for the groups to orchestrate activities in an effective manner. The coordination aspect of collaboration is thus made more difficult.

To overcome this obstacle, cooperative systems utilize awareness features that enable an understanding of what everyone is working on. Such awareness features rely on interaction data provided by a mouse, keyboard, and operations performed within the shared application. While this covers presence and activity, it does neglect nonverbal communication channels such as gaze, which is known to be a vital part of human interaction (e.g., Bavelas, Coates, & Johnson, 2002) and thereby successful group work.

Although remote collaboration does not inevitably perform worse than co-located group work despite the missing nonverbal communication (Hatem, Kwan, & Miles, 2012), several studies in recent years have shown that mutually displaying real-time eye movements (i.e., gaze sharing, see Fig. 1.1) can be beneficial for remote (and co-located) collaboration (e.g., D’Angelo & Begel, 2017; D’Angelo & Gergle, 2016;

Higuch, Yonetani, & Sato, 2016; Li, Manavalan, D’Angelo, & Gergle, 2016; Pietinen, Bednarik, & Tukiainen, 2010; Schneider & Pea, 2013; Velichkovsky, 1995; Zhang et al.,

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Chapter 1. Introduction 2 2017). The positive effect of this additional gaze awareness is attributed to more efficient spatial referencing, a better understanding of who is focusing on what, and the implicit establishing of a shared focus.

FIGURE1.1: Gaze sharing for remote collaboration using a real-time and spatial-based representation in the form of a gaze cursor.

However, the experimental environments were suited to support closely coupled and referencing-heavy tasks. In this particular case, the apparent representation of eye movements in the form of a real-time and spatial-based representation (e.g., a gaze cursor or a scan path) is sufficient to exhibit the advantages of gaze awareness.

However, closely coupled referencing-heavy periods represent only part of the diverse processes that occur during a collaboration. A common collaborative situation found on a shared visual workspace is “where people create new artifacts, navigate through a space of objects, or manipulate existing artifacts” (Gutwin & Greenberg, 2004, p. 2).

This situation is not only characterized by a more complex interface as a result of the co-constructing nature of the tasks performed on shared visual workspaces, but also a converging and diverging work coupling that questions the usefulness of the obvious real-time and spatial-based representation. The question then becomes: How can gaze awareness be used for such collaborative processes?

1.1 Problem Statement

Expanding the benefits of gaze awareness to shared visual workspaces poses several obstacles in terms of gaze representations and the evaluation of its impacts. The visual representation of gaze awareness is further complicated by the following circumstances found to be quite common in collaborative situations:

(1) Most applications do not provide a strict What-You-See-Is-What-I-See (WYSI- WIS) interface (Stefik, Bobrow, Foster, Lanning, & Tatar, 1987), which renders a real-time and spatial-based gaze representation useless. This mismatch calls for the utilization of context-based representations that refer to objects, areas, or artifacts rather than spatial attributes.

(2) Perceiving an always-on display (i.e., gaze cursor) increases cognitive load, as eye movements do not always contain meaningful information for the current situation. This low signal-to-noise ratio forces the observer to constantly assess the significance of the eye movements and calls for the analysis of these eye

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Chapter 1. Introduction 3 movements to distinguish between signals (i.e., the visual attention of a collaborator is useful) and noise (e.g., a collaborator not focusing on the task at hand).

(3) The cognitive limitation of humans in terms of the necessary visual attention required to track multiple objects at once (A. Tran & Hoffman, 2016) hinders the use of cursor-like representations outside of dyads, whose individuals only have to deal with a single moving object. This calls for aggregated visualizations that condense eye movements from multiple users to easy-to-grasp representations.

(4) A volatile representation, such as a cursor, suits the interval of closely coupled work but neglects periods of asynchronicity during collaboration. This calls for timing-aware, on-demand, or persistent representations.

In summary, these four complications require replacing or partially supplementing the gaze cursor with other representations that suit (1) the cooperative system’s interface, (2) the task, (3) the group size, and (4) the moment-to-moment closeness of the current work coupling. In contrast to spatial-based representations of eye movements, whose implementation can be an independent overlay, such adaptive visualizations require a holistic approach that must continuously include external circumstances.

Evaluating the impact of gaze awareness is also complicated by several factors resulting from a group’s unrestricted access to a shared workspace and the artifact created therein. Prior knowledge, performance differences, and the degrees of free- dom during typical collaborative tasks significantly influence quality-of-outcome or time-to-completion, which makes a quantitative evaluation that aims to identify the independent variable “gaze awareness” as a cause for the outcome nearly impossible. Even with rigorous coding on an eye movement time scale, it is questionable to unconditionally attribute a user’s actions to gaze awareness to allow a quantitative approach based on a coding scheme, because observers have no access to the participants’ thought processes and decisions. This demands a shift from a solely quantitative to a mixed-method approach that focuses on the collaborative process and not its outcome.

1.2 Aim of this Thesis

Keeping the four complications of gaze representations in mind, an additional component between the recording and playback of eye movements needs to be introduced.

This component can not be based on gaze data exclusively, since external circumstances dictate their importance (i.e., Would the current collaboration benefit from gaze sharing and if so, how?). It follows that the heterogeneity of remote collaboration tools, tasks, and group sizes prevent a universal component with a one-fits-all gaze representation. Instead, an individual solution for a specific use case has to be tailored, which does not rule out overlaps or best practices.

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Chapter 1. Introduction 4 The associated necessary effort holds similar potential as the digital transformation of the workspace itself; gaze awareness can exceed what is known from face-to-face collaboration (see Fig. 1.2). Aiding users with concise gaze sharing – the application-specific and task-relevant representations of eye movements – may help to coordinate activities, foster joint attention, and bring remote teams closer together.

FIGURE1.2: A concise gaze sharing component is integrated into the initial groupware that connects eye movements and collaboration closeness at run-

time to display context-relevant gaze representations.

Concise Gaze Sharing Design Approach

The process of tailoring a gaze sharing solution includes not only analytical (i.e., modeling, implementation, and evaluation) but also creative (i.e., visual design) aspects. To ensure the quality of such a multifaceted process, standardization is recommended. Thus, thefirst aimof this thesis is to propose theConcise Gaze Sharing (CGS) Design Approach. As shown in Fig. 1.3, this design approach consists of aDesign Process and the associatedDesign Knowledge. While the design process describes general steps to iteratively design and evaluate gaze awareness in collaborative applications, the design knowledge is a growing set of contributions to predefined knowledge bases covering preparatory work, algorithms, data handling, visual design recommendations, and evaluation methodology. Thesecond aimof this thesis is to evaluate this CGS Design Approach by applying the design process tothree case studieswith increasing complexity. These evaluations will add detailed contributions to the design knowledge (third aim).

FIGURE1.3: Thesis aims

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Chapter 1. Introduction 5

Scope

From a technical perspective, modifying the initial groupware to mediate gaze sharing requires the inclusion of in-depth knowledge of both eye movements and the current work coupling (i.e., how close or loose is the collaboration at any given moment?). In order to achieve this, additional input channels such as presence, activities on the screen, and written and verbal communication need to be interrelated.

This thesis focuses on the gaze related aspects of the proposed design approach, but it will advance to all facets necessary for evaluation.

1.3 Outline

This section provides an outline of this thesis and matches its aims to the accom- panying chapters. Figure 1.4 shows a graphical representation of the following six chapters.

FIGURE1.4: Graphical representation of the thesis outline

Related Work

Chapter 2 first narrows down the research areas from remote collaboration, coordination and its need for awareness, eye tracking, and finally to gaze sharing, which briefly covers the foundation topics of this thesis. Subsequently, a classification scheme for gaze sharing setups is proposed (Section 2.2) and then applied to related work, which is also used for the case studies of this thesis. After introducing each related work’s gaze sharing setup, the chapter ends with summarizing and discussing the scope of these works to highlight the research gap addressed by this thesis.

Concise Gaze Sharing Design

Chapter 3 addresses the first aim, which is to propose theConcise Gaze Sharing Design Approach. It follows the design science research (DSR) approach, which is summarized in the chapter’s introductory section. Next, the CGS Design Approach, which includes the Design Process and Design Knowledge, is described in detail. It is acustomized instanceof the introduced design science research framework adapted to fit the domain of this thesis. The main focus lies in specifying the DSR knowledge base (i.e., relevant categories of Design Knowledge).

Evaluation

The CGS Design Approach is then evaluated by applying it to three case studies (Chapters 4 to 6). Each evaluation addresses the second and third aim of this thesis:

On the one hand (Evaluate), overarching aims on the CGS Design Approach level that assess the processes’ applicability and suitability of the attached knowledge base categories. On the other hand (Contribute), aims in terms of concise gaze sharing

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Chapter 1. Introduction 6 and thereby adding contributions to the design knowledge. The case studies are selected so that they advance on one or more of the three key influential factors of the proposed classification scheme for gaze sharing setups. At the end of each case study, both aims are summarized and discussed.

Discussion

Finally, Chapter 7 presents a summary of the problem, the thesis’ aims and approach, followed by an overview of the main contributions and a discussion of limitations, open issues, and future work.

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Chapter 2

Related Work

This chapter addresses the primary research areas related to this thesis using a top- down approach, which provides a brief overview of its foundations and concludes with the related topic of gaze sharing. Following this, a classification scheme for gaze sharing setups is proposed, which is then used to categorize the gaze sharing setups of related publications. Subsequently, for each category, the assigned publications are briefly summarized. Finally, the extent to which these publications contribute to a holistic design approach in terms of concise gaze sharing is discussed, and the research gap towards this end is identified.

2.1 Research Areas

Remote Collaboration

Remote collaboration includes all aspects of “working together,” which are also known as the 5Cs (Shah, 2013): Communication, Contribution, Coordination, Cooper- ation, and Collaboration. The term contribution is defined as “that to have an effective collaboration, each member of the group should make an individual contribution to the collaborative” (Shah, 2013, p. 1123). This fundamental requirement, just like communication, is expected for gaze sharing.

Coordination, Cooperation and Collaboration

The remaining three Cs (Coordination, Cooperation, and Collaboration) have some similar and some very different definitions, which will not be discussed here.

Instead, this thesis follows the definition by Roschelle and Teasley: The cooperative solving of a task is understood as splitting the task into subtasks and then merging the individual parts to a joint artifact while collaborative solving “is a coordinated, synchronous activity that is the result of a continued attempt to construct and maintain a shared conception of a problem” (Roschelle & Teasley, 1995, p. 70). Coordination is required by all types of group works and is itself subdivided into three dimensions, as stated by Boos, Kolbe, and Strack (2011, p. 16):

“The coordination problem consists not only of the interdependencies of memberspecific activity contributions (behaviours), but also of the coordination of terms and information (meanings), as well as special role expectations and intentions (goals) held by individual members of the group.”

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Chapter 2. Related Work 8 While goals and meanings are usually explicitly mediated via communication, behaviors are often coordinated implicitly by observing other collaborators’ actions to achieve synchronization of actions in time and space. The coordination of behavior in groupware is supported by awareness mechanisms, to which this thesis is associated:

sharing gaze increases the group’s awareness of its collaborators’ actions.

Workspace Awareness

“Collaboration has its benefits, but coordination has its costs” (Brennan, Chen, Dickinson, Neider, & Zelinsky, 2008, p. 1465). For at least 25 years, awareness has been a central concept in CSCW/CSCL research that deals with the question

“What is it that a set of cooperating actors needs to be aware of in order to work together?” (Tenenberg, Roth, & Socha, 2015, p. 1). Trimming this concept to the thesis’ focus of adding gaze awareness to a shared visual workspace, the relevant subtopic is workspace awareness, which covers the Who, What and Where in a shared environment (Gutwin & Greenberg, 2002). Gaze (Where are they looking?) is actually explicitly mentioned by (Gutwin & Greenberg, 2002, p. 421): “Location, gaze, and view relate to where the person is working, where they are looking, and what they can see.” Thus, workspace awareness enables the coordination of behaviors, and gaze can be a meaningful additional input channel.

Eye Tracking for. . .

To enable gaze as an input channel, additional sensory equipment is required:

eye trackers. The methodology of capturing eye movements is called eye-tracking.

A fundamental distinction of eye-tracking is its use case: analytical or interactive.

Both are an indispensable part of this thesis. Equally important for the two are the foundations such as fixations, saccades, smooth pursuits, and involuntary eye movements, which represent how the human eye works, as well as hardware related aspects (Duchowksi, 2017). Eye tracker hardware characteristics such as sampling rate, accuracy, and precision highly influence technical possibilities, and thus might enable or restrict artifact design from the beginning.

. . . Analytical Use

The analytical use case is why eye trackers originated and aims to observe and understand eye movements in a plethora of research fields, such as medicine, psy- chology, marketing, and human-computer-interaction (Holmqvist et al., 2011).

. . . Interactive Use

Interactive eye-tracking uses eye movements to select or trigger actions on the screen, with gaze-controlled virtual keyboards being one of the most well-known use cases (Majaranta & Räihä, 2002). While there are several ways how gaze interaction can be achieved (Duchowski, 2018), the user is always actively using eye movements to control an interface. Using an eye tracker as an input sensor differs significantly from traditional human-computer-interaction devices such as a mouse, keyboard, or touchscreen. While those input methods have a clearly intended purpose in selecting or triggering an action, eye movements during remote collaboration first and foremost serve the purpose of exploration and information retrieval, which is then changed to a double use case: visual attention as a perception mechanism and using visual attention to inform other collaborators.

. . . Implicit Interaction

A special area of gaze interaction is the implicit gaze interaction, which aims to derive intentions from eye movements without requiring the user to control eye movements consciously (e.g., Bader & Beyerer, 2013; Bednarik, Vrzakova, & Hradis,

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Chapter 2. Related Work 9 2012; Bulling, Ward, Gellersen, & Tröster, 2011; Cheng & Liu, 2012; Hyrskykari, Majaranta, & Räihä, 2003; Ronal Singh et al., 2018; Zhai, Morimoto, & Ihde, 1999).

Although previous works focus on a single-user domain, implicit gaze interaction shares a similar concept with the concise gaze sharing idea: Naturally occurring eye movements are used to detect what the user is doing or wants to do, without requiring the user to change their habits.

Gaze Sharing

Using eye-tracking to address the need for awareness, which aims to support the coordination of behaviors during remote collaboration, can be achieved with gaze sharing; it provides collaborators with awareness about their peers’ visual attention to compensate for the missing gaze cues from co-located work.

Before introducing gaze sharing publications, a classification scheme is proposed that addresses the scope of the publications’ gaze sharing setups. This classification then allows to group the related work and discuss the research gap addressed by this thesis.

2.2 Classification Scheme for Gaze Sharing Setups

Existing and planned gaze sharing setups can be visually classified using the spi- derweb diagram proposed in Fig. 2.1, which allows for roughly estimating a setup’s complexity. Moreover, the classification scheme can be used to identify similar setups to take advantage of existing (design) knowledge. The term “setup” – instead of

“groupware” – is used, as the number of users and their actual task are fundamental influencing factors for a setup’s complexity (details below). This accounts for the fact, that a gaze sharing setup for dyads is possibly unsuitable for more users and that a task might only require a subset of a groupware’s features. Thus, multiple setups might be identified for the same groupware system.

The three axes show the key influential factors (the more complex, the farther away from the center), which form the gaze awareness design context: Interdependence, Workspace Interaction, and Group Size. They are based on the four complications mentioned in the problem statement (see Section 1.1, Page 2).

The axisWorkspace Interactionmerges the first two complications (user interface and task) into a single dimension due to overlaps. It represents the interactivity of the groupware’s interface, which is closely related to the given task, as the features provided by the groupware must be in line with the process of solving the task (e.g., a static search task might just require the feature of selection, whereas creating a joint text requires diverse mechanisms for input and manipulation). Its four characteristics are “static” (i.e., purely visual/selection task, static does not exclude changing a view, for instance via scrolling), “low” (pre-made objects that can be rearranged), “medium”

(creating, reading, updating and deleting objects, e.g. as part of a formal diagram or text) and “high” (whiteboard in a traditional sense, with more or less unconstrained visualization possibilities).

The axisGroup Sizeaddresses the third complication and accounts for the number of different data streams (eye movements and interactional data) that increases with

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Chapter 2. Related Work 10

FIGURE2.1: Classification scheme for existing and planned gaze sharing setups, which allows to (1) estimate a setup’s complexity and

(2) identify similar setups.

each additional user. This number can profoundly influence the selection of gaze awareness representations. For instance, larger groups might require summarizing the individual gaze cues into more abstract visualizations, while dyads could still visually handle precise real-time visualizations.

The axisInterdependencecovers the variety and predictability of the work coupling, the fourth complication. Its three levels are “primarily closely coupled,” “regular divergence,” and “variable divergence.” They are intentionally coarsely selected to allow a quick estimation without the need for an in-depth analysis of the groupware.

The first value addresses the primarily mutual engagement in a joint activity (i.e., doing something together). This value becomes less likely with an increase in group size, as more users tend to assign subtasks. “Regular divergence” describes tasks in which users routinely diverge into predictable subtasks. Predictable means that sequences of divergence can be anticipated, as the task or groupware characteristics require to do so. “Variable divergence” covers tasks in which it is up the group to coordinate themselves. That can lead to numerous work couplings, whose appearances and transitions are unknown beforehand.

2.3 Overview of Related Gaze Sharing Publications

This section introduces twelve gaze sharing publications, which address the same domain as this thesis: remote collaboration via screen-based applications. These works can be classified into three different groups of the previously proposed classification scheme (see Fig. 2.2). The three following subsections correspond to these groups

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Chapter 2. Related Work 11 and are ordered by ascending complexity regarding the group’s Workspace Inter- action level. Each subsection then briefly summarizes the publications assigned to that group regarding the gaze sharing setup’s task, gaze visualization, experimental design, result, and conclusion.

FIGURE2.2: Classification of the gaze sharing setups in related work

2.3.1 Gaze Sharing in Static Workspaces

Collaborative Search Task:

O-in-Qs

Brennan et al. (2008) tested three conditions (voice, gaze, voice+gaze) in a search task in which a dyad had to find the letter O in a set of Qs as fast as possible. The gaze cursor was designed as a yellow 1.7° ring, which moved based on head-worn eye trackers with a sampling rate of 500Hz, displayed on 100Hz screens (no mention of smoothing). In this time-critical task, the gaze-only condition outperformed the other conditions as speech cost more time.

Sniper Game

Coordinating spatial referencing was also examined by Neider, Chen, Dickinson, Brennan, and Zelinsky (2010) in a sniper game, which came down to spotting a red pixel in a static scene showing several buildings in a city. Sixteen dyads participated in a between-subjects design with four conditions (none, voice, gaze, voice+gaze) in which they had 30 seconds to find and simultaneously agree (via a button click) on a target before losing the game. To increase the feeling of time pressure, gunshot sounds were played back every 3s after the first 6s. The gaze cursor design was identical to the one described in the previous study. The results showed that the spatial coordination was clearly supported by gaze, especially as the scene was cluttered and unique identifiers for verbal referencing were scarce (e.g., point via gaze versus specifying a direction and then counting floors and windows).

Expert-Novice:

Explain Algorithm

Bednarik and Shipilov (2012) used one-way gaze sharing in an expert-novice setting in which an expert had the task of explaining the function of an algorithm.

Twelve novices were guided in a with-subject design (no-gaze vs. gaze). The gaze

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Chapter 2. Related Work 12 cursor was designed as a circle with a 25px diameter and based on fixations. No significant improvements in performance measures were found. However, all except two participants found the gaze cursor helpful. Participants mentioned that seeing another participant’s gaze is sometimes disturbing. They also concluded, “that gaze- transfer should be task-dependent and should be adaptive on the progress of the process” (Bednarik & Shipilov, 2012, p. 4). They further envisioned that “such kind of intelligent interfaces would be built on a detailed knowledge of the task at hand, type of media, current point of regard, and collaborator skills; the list of factors and inputs, on which a model would be built and maintained, is longer” (Bednarik & Shipilov, 2012, p. 5).

Collaborative Learning Task

On the topic of neuroscience, students had to infer the effect of three particular lesions on the visual field (Schneider & Pea, 2013). In a between-subjects experiment, 22 dyads collaborated in a gaze-visible condition and 20 dyads in a no-gaze control group. The gaze cursor was designed as a light blue half-transparent circle of 20 pixels with four refreshes per second. Five pictures were presented next to each other, and participants could freely communicate during the task. An increase of joint attention and learning gains were found in the gaze condition.

Hidden Objects

D’Angelo and Gergle (2018) compared three gaze visualizations in a search task versus a no-gaze control condition. Forty-eight dyads collaborated in a 2x4 within- subject design in which they had to collaboratively and independently search using all conditions (fully randomized). The three gaze visualizations were as follows:

(1) Gaze Path: 1pt thick line connecting the current fixation (10px black circle) with the previous fixation (10px red circle with 10% opacity). (2) Heatmap: Fixations as circles, which turn from orange to dark red with more fixations within the same region and fade out after a 14s time out. (3) Shared area: A gray ring (5pt thick, 50px diameter) that is displayed when both participants look at the same region at the same time. Results indicated a faster spatial referencing as deictic terms could be used in combination with gaze as a pointer. For the gaze path visualization, participants reported that it was useful but also distracting. The researchers concluded that they “see that properties of the task such as degree of coupling also affect how gaze visualizations are attended to or ignored” (D’Angelo & Gergle, 2018, p. 9).

2.3.2 Gaze Sharing when Interacting with Provided Objects

Expert-Novice:

Picture Puzzle

Velichkovsky (1995) examined a one-way gaze sharing cooperative puzzle game in an expert-novice setting, with the expert knowing the solution and supporting the novice. The novice was being instructed to solve the puzzle as fast as possible.

Two one-way gaze sharing experiments were conducted. In the first experiment, three conditions were tested in a within-subject design: speech only, speech+gaze, and speech+mouse cursor. The gaze condition displayed the expert’s gaze on the novice’s screens. In the second experiment, two conditions were tested (speech only and speech+gaze), with the gaze sharing direction reversed; the expert could see the

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Chapter 2. Related Work 13 novice’s eye movements. The gaze and mouse cursor were designed as a round half- transparent red circle of 1° angular size with a refresh rate of the eye tracker’s 60Hz.

Both the gaze and mouse conditions, “led to a significant increase in the efficiency of the distributed problem solving” (Velichkovsky, 1995, p. 199).

Collaborative Tangram Puzzle

Carletta et al. (2010) presented software for studying remote collaboration with the inclusion of gaze. The publication also included an example experiment to propose potential ways for data analysis. For that, a joint construction game was used in which a dyad had to assemble a two-dimensional model (Tangram) as fast as possible by selecting parts from a set and joining them correctly by moving and rotating the parts. Cooperative behavior was fostered by requiring participants to join two pieces simultaneously. In a randomized within-subject design with four conditions (no-gaze, voice, gaze, voice+gaze), two cohorts (expert-novice and collaborative) were recorded.

All conditions also could see the peer’s mouse cursor. The gaze cursor was designed as a small circular cursor. No increase in gaze overlaps (shared gaze) was found in the gaze conditions; this might be due to the additional cursor based on mouse movements that also could be used for pointing. Furthermore, the assignment of unique colors to the tangram shapes allowed fast referencing without the need for any pointing mechanism.

Expert-Novice:

Picture Puzzle

Another joint puzzle task was examined by Müller, Helmert, Pannasch, and Velichkovsky (2013) with a one-way gaze sharing setup for an expert-novice setting.

Again, the novice was instructed to solve the puzzle (5x4 pieces) as fast as possible.

Ninety-six participants interacted in a within-subject design in which they used four conditions: gaze, voice, gaze+voice, and mouse+voice. Both gaze and mouse cursors were visualized as a tricolor eye icon. While not clearly stated, fixations were presumably used to refresh the gaze cursor. They found that “performance was better when using either gaze or mouse transfer compared to speech alone” (Müller et al., 2013, p. 1), however, also that gaze “has costs in terms of a higher ambiguity than conventional referencing devices” (Müller et al., 2013, p. 13). The researchers concluded that task characteristics should be closely examined when considering gaze as a support mechanism.

Collaborative Picture Puzzle

Simple and complex puzzles were also tested by D’Angelo and Gergle (2016) in which 36 students interacted in a 3x2 within-subject design. On the one hand, the three collaborative conditions of co-location, remote with shared gaze, and remote without shared gaze. On the other hand, the two conditions of linguistic complexity

“simple” (a photograph) and “complex” (a color pattern with similar-looking pieces).

The task was to solve the puzzles as fast and as accurately as possible while being forced to collaborate through the system; joining pieces required to drag and drop puzzle pieces simultaneously. During the co-located condition, two mouse cursors were visible, whereas in the remote condition with gaze, only the peer’s gaze was displayed as an eye pictogram with a smoothing animation to avoid jitters. The

“remote without shared gaze” condition had no pointer and thus had to be done solely via speech. It was found that gaze sharing “makes pairs more accurate when referring to linguistically complex objects by facilitating the production of efficient

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Chapter 2. Related Work 14 forms of deictic references” (D’Angelo & Gergle, 2016, p. 2492). However, problems with misaligned gaze cursors due to low accuracy were encountered, and the potential of being distracted by the gaze cursor’s movements was mentioned by participants.

Collaborative Puzzle and

Expert-Novice Bomb Defusion Game

Li et al. (2016) tested two gaze cursor variants in two different time-critical tasks with 8 participants: a collaborative puzzle game (similar to the complex puzzle in the previously mentioned gaze sharing setup by D’Angelo and Gergle (2016)) and a bomb defusion task. In the latter, one participant who acted as a director knew the solution while a partner was in charge of actually defusing the bomb. Both gaze cursor variants had an eye-pictogram (50x50 pixels) as a baseline with an additional visualization: a zoom focus, which shows a 1000x1000px square when fixations occur in the same location and zooms into that area, and a gaze trail, where previous fixations are displayed as black spots that fade out after time to avoid cluttering the screen. Participants found the zoom focus “too cognitively demanding and expressed that the lack of feedback made it unclear if they were successfully signaling” (Li et al., 2016, p. 327). For the gaze trail, it was noted, that “many participants expressed feeling overwhelmed by the excess amount of visual information, and they found it distracted from the task when working in real time” (Li et al., 2016, p. 327).

2.3.3 Gaze Sharing when Modifying within a Given Format

Collaborative Pair Programming:

Web Page

Pietinen et al. (2010) examined a single pair-programming dyad over the course of 8 weeks while creating a database-driven dynamic web page. In a two-way gaze sharing setup, only one could make changes to the source code (coder) while the other was the reviewer who searched for errors in the code. The gaze was displayed as 1px black line paths for saccades and dots for fixations. Judging from the published screenshots, the gaze was displayed as-is from the eye tracker without smoothing animations. From qualitative results, the researchers proposed that “high rate of overlapping fixations could possible [sic] be sign of efficient collaboration” (Pietinen et al., 2010, p. 23).

Collaborative Pair Programming:

Refactoring

D’Angelo and Begel (2017) studied a pair programming refactoring task with a gaze cursor variant. Twelve dyads in an industrial-like setting worked in a within- subject design with a no-gaze and a gaze-supported condition on two similarly complex source codes (15 minutes each). While showing a strict WYSIWIS interface, both participants had their own mouse and keyboard (only text selections were visible to the peer) and interacted in a quasi-remote situation (same room with visual barrier). The gaze cursor was modified to fit the workspace format better: A “5-line high, 20 pixel wide, filled, colored rectangle displayed on the left margin of the other programmer’s code editor (and vice versa), centered on the Y coordinate[. . . ]”

(D’Angelo & Begel, 2017, p. 6248). An additional hysteresis-like smoothing function was used to avoid jitters and smooth the overall appearance. Results showed an increase in shared gaze and that “pairs communicated using a larger ratio of implicit to explicit references, and were faster and more successful at responding to those references” (D’Angelo & Begel, 2017, p. 6245).

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Chapter 2. Related Work 15 2.3.4 Other Gaze Sharing Publications

Gaze Sharing for Monitoring Students

Yao, Brewer, D’Angelo, Horn, and Gergle (2018) studied a gaze sharing setup that differs from the previously mentioned publications, as it describes a different gaze sharing purpose in a teacher-student setting with up to three students. In a quasi- remote situation, a teacher had to guide multiple students through source code in order for them to find bugs, which were then discussed – not fixed in the code – by the group. One-way gaze sharing was implemented from all students to the teacher with the purpose of a monitoring tool – not as a deliberately to be used telepointer. Each student’s gaze cursor was displayed as a color-coded circle (70-pixel radius) with a shadow indicating the current movement’s direction. In contrast to other programming experiments in the gaze sharing domain, the setup was not a strict WYSIWIS interface. Students could scroll independently through the source code, which was then indicated by colored markers in the teacher’s scrollbar to be able to keep track of the students’ position within the file. The researchers found

“that displaying gaze information from multiple students helps teachers confirm that students are following along and monitor the entire class without distracting from instruction” (Yao et al., 2018, p. 3). Furthermore, the teachers mentioned that they did not find multiple gaze cursor representations to be confusing. “This may be because of the nature of the teachers’ role; being already familiar with the task, the teachers only needed to keep track of students’ progress” (Yao et al., 2018, p. 5).

Design Tool

A tool for designing real-time spatial-based gaze awareness representations was proposed by Brewer, D’Angelo, and Gergle (2018), which acknowledges the fact that for real-time spatial-based representations, their design needs to fit the current context. Using the so-called Iris platform, “visualizations can be customized on a number of different features including size, color, number of previous fixations, smoothing, opacity, and style. Iris allows users to manipulate the representation of their eye movement information in real-time and apply their visualization to any screen-based context” (Brewer et al., 2018, p. 2).

2.4 Summary

Having briefly introduced the related gaze sharing publications; this section summarizes their main features to derive and highlight the gap addressed by this thesis. In general, as these publications are from various research domains with specific questions and perspectives on the topic of gaze sharing, they might not even be intended to cover the setting addressed by this thesis, which is the common collaborative situations found on shared visual workspaces (see Section 1.1, Page 2).

Figure 2.2 already visualized that the introduced gaze sharing setups fell mostly into the first level of the classification’s axes, with five setups classified as “low”

and two as “medium” on the Workspace Interaction axis. The classification scheme though neglects other key features of gaze sharing setups, namely theuser roles,tasks, andgaze visualizations. These were briefly mentioned for each gaze sharing setup in

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Chapter 2. Related Work 16 the previous sections and are summarized and discussed below to further assess their relevance to the addressed setting of this thesis.

User Roles

The participants’ roles were either symmetrical (collaborative) or asymmetrical (experts and novices), and some publications included both cases. In terms of symmetrical roles, gaze sharing is used to increase workspace awareness for all collaborators who pursue the same goal, e.g., creating a joint artifact. Most of the attention then remains on the artifact while the gaze awareness “casually” helps with the coordination. However, in terms of the latter, experts deliberately follow or guide novices’ eye movements and support the novices to solve a task. Thus, the bulk of the attention is focused on the other person and not the artifact.

Closely connected to these roles is the direction (one-way versus two-way) of the gaze sharing. The publications (Bednarik & Shipilov, 2012; Müller et al., 2013;

Velichkovsky, 1995) as well as (Yao et al., 2018) provided one-way gaze sharing in expert-novice settings, while the others provided two-way gaze sharing. Since in asymmetrical settings experts focus their attention primarily on the student and their attention and actions (or vice versa), the four complications mentioned in the problem statement (Section 1.1) do not apply in the same way to those gaze sharing setups.

For instance, getting distracted from the main task by gaze visualization does not apply, as closely following the gaze is a major part of the task (as shown in Yao et al.

(2018)). Although the two types, symmetrical, which is addressed by this thesis, and asymmetrical roles, pursue fundamentally different goals (co-construction versus guidance), both can share similarities in terms of gaze representation design, technical implementation and to some extent, evaluation methodology.

Tasks

The twelve publications addressed various search tasks and puzzles, one static learning task with images and three programming related tasks. While search tasks and puzzles mostly contained mechanisms to foster or even force collaboration (e.g., requiring users to connect puzzle pieces simultaneously), accurate and time- critical solving was also demanded. Although deadlines are common outside of lab experiments, a prominent countdown timer that induces time pressure is not. In general, these circumstances are typically not found within shared visual workspaces and are a necessary part of a lab experiment to foster certain behavior.

More overlap to common collaborative situations regarding tasks is found in the programming related settings by Bednarik and Shipilov (2012), Pietinen et al. (2010), and D’Angelo and Begel (2017). However, Bednarik and Shipilov (2012) studied an expert-novice setting with one-way gaze sharing that can be considered a mere telepointer replacement, which to some extent also applies to Pietinen et al. (2010), who studied a single dyad (coder and reviewer) with two-way gaze sharing in a strict WYSIWIS setup. The work of D’Angelo and Begel (2017) stands out, as, in an industrial-like setting, both participants could collaboratively refactor the given code using their own set of mouse and keyboard. The setup though provides a strict WYSIWIS interface, which restricts the work coupling to remain primarily close.

Apart from these pair programming scenarios with restricted variability of the work coupling, no common co-constructing tasks were studied.

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Chapter 2. Related Work 17

Gaze Visualizations

All gaze sharing setups used some form of an always-on, real-time, and spatial- based visualization, which ranges from various gaze cursor designs to gaze paths or heatmaps. To put it in a nutshell, the gaze sharing setups used gaze as a telepointer replacement, which can lead to faster referencing (as eyes move faster than a mouse cursor), but might also introduce uncertainty and can sometimes lead to confusion, even in dyads. An exception to this possible negative impact is the visualization used by D’Angelo and Begel (2017), which only took the eye movement’s y-coordinates into account and applied a hysteresis to avoid distracting movements. Except for this implementation, which was developed as a plugin for the experiment’s integrated development environment, all other setups (though not always specified) are likely always achieved via overlays and thus decoupled from the actual interface.

Design Process

As all but one setup used a mere superimposed gaze visualization that can be implemented completely decoupled from the actually used interface, no specific design or development process was mentioned by these publications.

Conclusion

This thesis aims to propose and evaluate an approach for designing and im- plementing a concise gaze sharing component, which is integrated into the initial groupware and connects eye movements and the work coupling to display context- relevant gaze representations, not exclusively in real-time. None of the works are advancing in this desired direction but mentioned in their discussion the need to in- corporate task characteristics and the work coupling (e.g., Bednarik & Shipilov, 2012;

D’Angelo & Gergle, 2016, 2018; Müller et al., 2013). Nonetheless, these works include relevant contributions for the concise gaze sharing approach, which are mentioned in the following chapters in the associated context to increase readability.

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19

Chapter 3

Concise Gaze Sharing Design

This chapter proposes the Concise Gaze Sharing (CGS) Design Approach, which aims to support the design, implementation, and evaluation of tailored gaze sharing solutions. It is based on the Design Science Research paradigm by Hevner, March, Park, and Ram (2004), which is briefly introduced in the following section.

3.1 Design Science Research

Behavioral and Design Science

Creating novel gaze sharing representations includes designing the visual aspect of the representation (which is a creative process in the context of the given application) as well as grounding its appearance and associated meaning in a deep understanding of the current work coupling (addressed by behavioral science). The impact of these representations during active use is unknown and can influence the remote collaboration processes. This reciprocal relationship needs to be observed and incorporated by adjusting or re-designing the gaze sharing representations. Thus, an iterative process is required.

Design Science Research (DSR)

In the field of information technology research, the combination of design and behavioral science in an iterative development process is done in the well-established research approach of Design Science Research (DSR) (Hevner et al., 2004). It is a problem-solving process abiding by the fundamental principle that “knowledge and understanding of a design problem and its solution are acquired in the building and application of an artifact” (Hevner, 2014, p. 5). This general approach can also be found in the German “Memorandum zur gestaltungsorientierten Wirtschaftsinforma- tik” (Österle et al., 2010).

Classification:

Improvement DSR

From a bird’s eye view, DSR processes can be classified using the knowledge contribution framework (Gregor & Hevner, 2013, p. 345), which is a 2x2 matrix with application domain and solution maturity as its axes and low and high as values (see Fig. 3.1). Concise Gaze Sharing falls into ahighapplication domain maturity, as cooperative systems and awareness research pose a long history, and alowsolution maturity, since gaze awareness research is still in its infancy. Therefore, a DSR process in the targeted problem space is classified as anImprovement DSRprocess, intending

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Chapter 3. Concise Gaze Sharing Design 20

FIGURE3.1: DSR Knowledge Contribution Framework.

Adapted from Gregor and Hevner (2013, p. 345).

to develop new solutions for known problems: utilizing eye-tracking methodology as a new input sensor to tackle the lack of gaze awareness during remote collaboration.

Design and Relevance Cycle

The actual Design Science Research framework is shown in Fig. 3.2. At its core, it holds aDesign Cyclewith two main processes: Develop/build and Justify/evaluate.

Both processes are meant to be iteratively executed one after the other to create and then further improve a developed artifact or theory. The needs or requirements for this artifact or theory are extracted from the environment, which covers people, organizations, and technology (i.e., problem space). In the case of concise gaze sharing, this includes the loss of awareness that is caused by remote collaboration. The evaluated artifact should then be applied once more in the appropriate environment, which might continue to change the requirements; this is called theRelevance Cycle.

FIGURE3.2: Combined view of the DSR research framework (Hevner, 2014, p. 4) and the DSR cycles (Hevner, 2007, p. 88). Adapted by the author.

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Rigor Cycle

The distinction of a design project is found in theRigor Cycle, which supports decision making and design byFoundationsand ensures ongoing evaluation based on suitable researchMethodologies. Foundations and methodologies form the knowledge base and are described as both descriptive (What?) and prescriptive (How?) knowledge (Gregor & Hevner, 2013). While in the beginning this is existing applicable knowledge (i.e., related work covering all aspects of the DSR process), it is extended by any additions discovered in the Design Cycle.

Knowledge Base

A closer view of the knowledge base is depicted in Fig. 3.3. The key differentia- tors of descriptive (Ω-What?) and prescriptive (Λ-How?) knowledge are further subdivided into the two primary formsPhenomenaandSense-makingfor descriptive knowledge and the five types (Constructs,Models,Methods,Instantiations, andDesign Theory) for prescriptive knowledge.

FIGURE3.3: The Design Science Research Knowledge Base (Gregor & Hevner, 2013, p. 344). Adapted by the author.

Descriptive Knowledge

Phenomena are observations or measurements, while sense-making upholds models interpreting these phenomena, i.e., documenting and explaining things that have been there all along. Drechsler and Hevner (2018, p. 89) considered this as part of the problem space, which itself has low applicability to real-world problems but helps to understand the problem and its context to formulate goodness criteria.

Prescriptive Knowledge

Prescriptive knowledge, on the other hand, offers applicability to real-world problems and is thus considered part of the solution space (Drechsler & Hevner, 2018, p. 89). It contains inventions created by human creativity. According to Hevner (2014, p. 12), the five types of prescriptive knowledge can be summarized as:

• Constructs “. . . provide the vocabulary and symbols used to define and understand problems and solutions.”

• Models “. . . are designed representations of the problem and possible solutions.”

• Methods “. . . are algorithms, practices, and recipes for performing a task.”

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• Instantiations “. . . are the physical systems that act on the natural world . . . [and] can embody design knowledge, possibly in the absence of more explicit description.”

• A design theory includes all of the above, and “. . . is an abstract, coherent body of prescriptive knowledge . . . used to develop an artifact.”

Evolution of Knowledge

Due to the iterative nature of the DSR approach, the associated knowledge base grows with each design cycle (see Fig. 3.4). As Gregor and Hevner (2013, A3) wrote, old contributions and design knowledge will remain in the growing knowledge base “to provide a record of the historical evolution of the technology.” This cycle

FIGURE3.4: The evolution of knowledge via design cycles (Gregor & Hevner, 2013, p. A4). Adapted by the author.

could continue until radical changes render the existing contributions, knowledge, or artifacts obsolete. It is also mentioned that the first design cycle might face non- existent related research and must rely on “inspired creativity and trial-and-error processes” to design artifacts (Gregor & Hevner, 2013, A3).

Contribution Levels

In addition to the apparent contribution of an artifact that is created by the Design Cycle, knowledge base additions can also be considered (research) contributions.

The DSR Artifact Contribution Types (Gregor & Hevner, 2013, p. 342) are divided into three levels, ranging from less abstract to more abstract. Level 1 contributions are situated implementations, such as software products. Level 2 is knowledge as operational principles, such as methods and models, and Level 3 contributions are well-developed design theories (see prescriptive knowledge). This classification allows for the acknowledgment of contributions that are not fully understood or, in some cases, a work in progress but are still of value for the problem space.

DSR Guidelines

The DSR framework is accompanied by a set of seven guidelines for conducting and evaluating good design science research (Hevner, 2014, p. 12): (G1) the process must produce a viable artifact, (G2) clearly state the problem relevance for the technology-based solution; (G3) demonstrate the artifact’s utility, quality, and efficacy via well-executed evaluation methods; (G4) make the research contribution clear;

(G5) follow rigorous research methods in both the construction and evaluation of the

Towards Concise Gaze Sharing

Christian Schlösser

Towards Concise Gaze Sharing

Fakultät für

Mathematik und

Informatik

F ERN U NIVERSITÄT IN H AGEN

D

Towards Concise Gaze Sharing

Abstract

Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

Chapter 1

Introduction

1.1 Problem Statement

1.2 Aim of this Thesis

1.3 Outline

Chapter 2

Related Work

2.1 Research Areas

2.2 Classification Scheme for Gaze Sharing Setups

2.3 Overview of Related Gaze Sharing Publications

2.4 Summary

Chapter 3

Concise Gaze Sharing Design

3.1 Design Science Research