Using freeze frame and visual notifications in an annotation drawing interface for remote collaboration

Abstract

This paper describes two user studies in remote collaboration between two users with a video conferencing system where a remote user can draw annotations on the live video of the local user’s workspace. In these two studies, the local user had the control of the view when sharing the first-person view, but our interfaces provided instant control of the shared view to the remote users. The first study investigates methods for assisting drawing annotations. The auto-freeze method, a novel solution for drawing annotations, is compared to a prior solution (manual freeze method) and a baseline (non-freeze) condition. Results show that both local and remote users preferred the auto-freeze method, which is easy to use and allows users to quickly draw annotations. The manual-freeze method supported precise drawing, but was less preferred because of the need for manual input. The second study explores visual notification for better local user awareness. We propose two designs: the red-box and both-freeze notifications, and compare these to the baseline, no notification condition. Users preferred the less obtrusive red-box notification that improved awareness of when annotations were made by remote users, and had a significantly lower level of interruption compared to the both-freeze condition.