Supporting awareness and interaction through domestic media spaces

家庭成员经常想要分享经验，即使他们不能同时在同一地点。例如，一位上班的父母可能想看看孩子回家后的第一步。同样，像祖父母这样住在很远的地方的大家庭可能想看他们孙子的足球比赛或芭蕾舞独奏会。视频会议系统可以允许这种类型的实时共享，然而，这种系统通常是为简短的、类似电话的对话而设计的，用户经常面临建立连接的技术障碍。克服这一问题的一种方法是使用媒体空间：一种在一个或多个地点之间创建虚拟连接的技术，通常使用始终在线的视频和/或音频链接。媒体空间一直在运行，因此用户只需走上前就可以使用它们。尽管使用起来很方便，但如何为家庭领域设计媒体空间，以便在平衡隐私问题的同时满足家庭成员的需求，仍然不清楚。 我提出的研究是关于国内媒体空间的设计。首先，我将通过人机界面和软件工程中常见的上下文设计和需求分析方法来调查人们使用现有视频会议系统时使用的例程。其次，我将利用这种理解来构建技术先进的国内新媒体空间的研究原型，旨在改善家人和朋友分享日常生活的方式。这将涉及计算机科学的核心方面，如实时视频的网络传输和基于情景感知的用户交互算法。第三，我将通过实验室和实地考察对研究原型进行评估。总而言之，这项研究将提供关于国内媒体空间应该如何设计以实现家庭联系的详细理解，以及构建这种计算先进的虚拟空间的新方法。这项工作对不久的将来的技术设计至关重要。视频会议系统(如Skype)在家庭中的使用激增，我们仍然没有强有力的经验基础来理解它们应该如何设计。

Family members often want to share experiences even when they cannot be in the same location at the same time. For example, a parent at work may want to see his child's first steps at home. Similarly, extended family such as grandparents who live far away may want to see their grandchild's soccer game or ballet recital. Video conferencing systems can permit this type of real time sharing, however, such systems are typically designed for short, phone-like conversations and users often face technical hurdles to establish connections. One way to overcome this is through the use of a media space: a technology that creates a virtual connection between one or more locations, usually with always-on video and/or audio links. Media spaces are always running so users can simply walk up and use them. Despite this ease of use, it is still not clear how to design media spaces for the domestic realm so that they can meet the needs of family members while balancing privacy concerns. My proposed research explores the design of domestic media spaces. First, I will investigate the routines that people employ for using existing video conferencing systems through contextual design and requirements analysis methodologies common to HCI and software engineering. Second, I will use this understanding to build technically-advanced research prototypes of new domestic media spaces aimed at improving the ways in which family and friends can share everyday life. This will involve core aspects of computer science, such as network transmission of live video and algorithms for user interaction based on context-aware sensing. Third, I will evaluate the research prototypes through laboratory and field studies. Together, this research will provide a detailed understanding of how domestic media spaces should be designed for family connectedness, along with new methods for building such computationally-advanced virtual spaces. This work is critical for technology design in the near future. Video conferencing systems (e.g., Skype) are proliferating in usage in the home and we still do not have a strong empirical basis for understanding how they should be designed.