D4.5.2 MediaConnect Experiment Progress Report v1.0

D4.5.
2 MediaConnect Experiment Progress Report

2013-03-22 Jens Grubert (Graz University of Technology) Gerhard Reitmayr (Graz University of Technology) Lyndon Nixon (STI International) Christian Bara (STI International)
This deliverable describes the interim progress on the MEDIAConnect experiment in Schladming. It includes information on the status of software implementation, base component integration, design of evaluation methods and initial results. The document provides facility developers, testbed operators and other open call partners with information about the first run of this open call experiment.
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Dissemination level: PU
Project acronym EXPERIMEDIA Full title Experiments in live social and networked media experiences Grant agreement number 287966 Funding scheme Large-scale Integrating Project (IP) Work programme topic Objective ICT-2011.1.6 Future Internet Research and Experimentation (FIRE) Project start date 2011-10-01 Project duration 36 months Activity 4 Experimentation Workpackage 4.5 EX5: Novel mobile interfaces for situated media and interactive video (MediaConnect) Deliverable lead organisation Graz University of Technology Authors Jens Grubert (Graz University of Technology), Gerhard Reitmayr (Graz University of Technology), Lyndon Nixon (STI International), Christian Bara (STI International) Reviewers Sandra Murg (JRS) Version 1.0 Status Final Dissemination level PU: Public Due date PM14 (2012-11-30) Delivery date 2013-03-22
Copyright Graz University of Technology and other members of the EXPERIMEDIA consortium 2013
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Table of Contents
1. 2. 3. Executive Summary............................................................................................................................ 4 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 5 Experiment Architecture and Implementation .............................................................................. 6 3.1. Mobile Augmented Reality Client........................................................................................... 6 3.1.1. Physical Slope Panoramas.................................................................................................... 6 3.1.2. Relevant Content Sources.................................................................................................... 7 3.1.3. 3D Model of the Ski Resort Area ....................................................................................... 7 3.1.4. Interaction Design ................................................................................................................ 8 3.2. 4. 4.1. Interactive Video Player ........................................................................................................... 9 Impact of AR on the QoE for an Information Discovery Task...................................... 11 Experiment Planning and Execution............................................................................................. 11 4.1.1. Study Design and Procedure ............................................................................................. 11 4.1.2. Participants........................................................................................................................... 12 4.1.3. Data Collection.................................................................................................................... 13 4.1.4. Hypothesis ........................................................................................................................... 13 4.1.5. Results................................................................................................................................... 13 4.2. Interactive Video Player ......................................................................................................... 14 4.2.1. Study design and procedure .............................................................................................. 14 4.2.2. Participants........................................................................................................................... 15 4.2.3. Data collection..................................................................................................................... 15 4.2.4. Hypothesis ........................................................................................................................... 17 4.2.5. Results................................................................................................................................... 17 5. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 23
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1. Executive Summary
This deliverable presents the current interim progress of the MEDIAConnect experiment at Schladming. The focus is on providing information about the current status and updates to the initial plan. Due to initial delays in communication with the facility the first run of the experiment had to be adapted. In the new form the first run of the experiment could be successfully conducted in Schladming and provides the first information about running further experiments at the Schladming venue to open call and driving experiment partners.
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2. Introduction
This deliverable is an intermediate progress report for the MEDIAConnect experiment at Schladming focusing on the investigation of the influence of novel user interfaces such as Augmented Reality and Interactive Video on the Quality of Experience (QoE) in accessing digital content situated in the real world. Furthermore, it is the first EXPERIMEDIA open call experiment to be conducted at the Schladming venue and can provide insights into opportunities and challenges of conducting other experiments at this EXPERIMEDIA facility. Finally it also targets at increasing the value impact for the venue itself. Schladming as a tourist destination relies on visitors and their satisfaction. With intensified competition among tourism destinations it is paramount to provide a competitive advantage to attract new visitors as well as to retain loyal tourists. Within the MEDIAConnect experiment tourists should be provided with innovative future internet technology solutions that improve the user experience on-site and remotely. Users should have the information at hand to enable the best possible experience and ideally the EXPERIMEDIA technologies deployed in the experiments will help to attract new visitors to the region, improve the visitor retention rate and contribute to a positive economic development of the region. As part of the experiment two mobile applications which focus on content relevant to the venue have been implemented. Firstly, a computer vision based mobile Augmented Reality application should allow tourists on site and remotely to get enhanced physical slope panoramas (see Figure 1) which mainly show static information with dynamic facility status updates as well as personalized content such as geo-referenced photos. Secondly, a mobile interactive video player should allow tourists on-site and remotely to better plan their Schladming experience by enabling interactive exploration of otherwise passive videos.
Figure 1. A slope panorama at the Planet Planai lift station at the Schladming venue.
Within this report we describe the current technical implementations of the mobile AR and interactive video applications and report on the planning and execution of the experiment as well as on initial results. Furthermore, we describe challenges in gathering relevant digital content for the applications and in preparing and conducting the experiment itself and how they led to a modification of the initial experiment plan.
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3. Experiment Architecture and Implementation

The MEDIAConnect experiment focuses on enriching tourists' experiences when interacting with local services and products through novel mobile interface technologies like Augmented Reality and Interactive Video. Specifically, a focus of the MEDIAConnect experiment is enhancing the experience of existing products and services through novel mobile interfaces rather than providing a complete service itself. This generates dependencies with the EXPERIMEDIA facility itself for gathering relevant content. In this section we describe the current state of the Mobile Augmented Reality and Interactive Video applications and on design decisions which are linked to the availability or absence of relevant content sources
3.1.
Mobile Augmented Reality Client
The mobile Augmented Reality client is a computer vision based AR system implemented with the Unity3D game engine and the Qualcomm Vuforia AR toolkit. Implementing the client with this software framework enables both rapid prototyping and a deployment to both major mobile platforms iOS and Android, allowing for a potentially widespread take up by smartphone and tablet users. The application is based around the idea of enabling users to quickly browse digital content sources linked to locations depicted on a poster by physically navigating the information space. Further detailed exploration of the individual content items (like photos or videos) is then supported in 2D views. Three main challenges had to be addressed throughout the development of the AR client: Firstly, getting access to representations of the physical slope panoramas, secondly, getting access to relevant digital content sources and finally getting access to a 3D model of the Schladming ski resort area. We will discuss these challenges next and afterwards provide more detail about the interaction design of the AR application.
3.1.1. Physical Slope Panoramas

In contrast to solutions that rely purely on digital assets the AR application is inherently bound to the presence of a physical object (the poster) which then is augmented. This physical object determines the interaction space (due to its physical extent) and the mapping (and scale) of digital content representations to physical locations on the object. Specifically, geo-referenced content sources have to be mapped to image coordinates on the poster. For computer vision based AR this mapping is an additional step compared to GPS and sensor based AR where points of interest can directly be visualized given only their WGS84 location (latitude, longitude). A specific challenge for slope panoramas is that the depicted area (mountains) often does not conform to a standard perspective projection which could automatically be generated from GIS data (and hence could support the automation of mapping WGS84 coordinates to image coordinates) but is still often hand-drawn and includes non-linear distortions to highlight semantically important areas (such as the slopes). Furthermore, a digital representation (an image file) of the physical object is needed for the AR application to recognize the physical object in a scene and to compute the 3D translation and rotation of the device relative to the physical object.
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An initial challenge in the implementation of the AR application was to get information about the physical slope panoramas themselves (how do they look like, what is their physical extent)? This information was not timely available through EXPERIMEDIA partners but finally could be made available through a local stakeholder, the Planai-Hochwurzen GmbH. This process introduced delays.
3.1.2. Relevant Content Sources

In order to enhance the experience of local visitors geo-referenced content sources which are available in the depicted area of the poster have to be available. Within the current prototype we focused on two types of content sources: infrastructure information and user generated data. For the infrastructure information we could get access to web sites through the PlanaiHochwurzen GmbH and associated partners which give live status updates about lifts, slopes and web cameras installed in the region. We implemented web-based APIs based on HTTP requests delivering JSON encoded data and deployed them on our own server infrastructure to programmatically access those content sources. The POI database used by the driving experiment in Schladming was considered, too. After insights from JRS about the likely low number of POIs which are actually located within the ski slope area depicted on the posters we decided to not include this data source at this point in time. Making user generated content accessible for the region depicted in the slope panoramas was challenging as relatively few geo-referenced content items were accessible through various image hosting and social network services. We implemented APIs for accessing images of Flickr, Instagram and Google Panoramio (see Figure 2). Only the later hosted a sufficient number of geo-referenced images which could be integrated into the AR client.
Figure 2: Geo-referenced user generated content (Panoramio photos) in the detail view of the AR client (left). The associated social network site with further information (right) can be accessed by clicking on a picture in the detail view.
3.1.3. 3D Model of the Ski Resort Area

An initial hypothesis of this experiment was H3: visitors will use the Augmented Reality interface longer if they interact with media items embedded in a 3D model of the environment than if they interact with media items directly overlaid to the static panorama image of the environment. In order to test this hypothesis it is necessary to include a high fidelity 3D model of the ski resort area. As such a model was not available through EXPERIMEDIA partners
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additional efforts were taken. Initially, freely available NASA digital surface model (DSM) data was retrieved. Additionally, we were able to acquire high resolution (1x1m) DSM data through a formal inquiry at the Amt der Steiermrkischen Landesregierung, A7 Landes- und Gemeindeentwicklung for scientific purposes. Both data sources (in XYZ data format) are not directly suitable for integration into the AR application but have to be converted into mesh data. While this was achievable for the coarse resolution model (see Figure 3) we are still in the process of converting the high resolution model with its very large file size (5 GB) into a model fit for rendering (possibly with multiple levels of details). Both models share the disadvantage that they have no textures (due to the conversion from raw DSM data). Further investigations will take place to search for suitable data sources for a faithful texturing of the model.
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Figure 3: A coarse and un-textured 3D model of the ski resort environment based on NASA digital surface model data with 90x90m resolution.
3.1.4. Interaction Design

A main concept of the interaction is based around the idea of quickly supporting the discovery of 2D content (images, videos, text) through physical spatial navigation in an Augmented Reality view and consecutively allowing detailed information exploration of individual content items in 2D views where appropriate (e.g., reading an extended textual description, watching a video). Therefore, users can select 3D icons representing different facilities (such as restaurants or lifts, see Figure 4) in the AR view either by touch on a screen or by a long touch on the icon for 1 second using a target cross in the middle of the screen. The latter should allow for touch free discovery of relevant icons under potentially very cold weather conditions. User generated content (geo-referenced pictures) are aggregated into a 3D image stack to allow for compact visualization of potentially many pictures in a small area. Details of a selected item are displayed in a detail view of the application (see Figure 2, left, bottom of the screen). For image stacks film strip visualizations allow for browsing pictures, for lifts the name, status and lift type are
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displayed. For webcams the current snapshot of a connected video stream is displayed. If additional details for items are available, such as the web cam stream or user comments to a photo those can be accessed through clicking buttons (or the images) in the detail view and the user is redirected to the system Web browser opening the associated website (see Figure 2, right). To support structured exploration of different POI types and visualizations users can select a specific POI type layer (facilities, photos) or visualization (AR/Map, 3D/2D) from a Layers pane at the left side of the screen. This pane can be covered and uncovered by bezel swipes.
Figure 4: 3D models of a hut (left) and of lift types (green: on, red: off) (right) used as icons in the AR view.
3.2.
Interactive Video Player
The current implementation of the hypervideo player is based on the open source LIME player1 (making use of the HTML5 video tag, video.js, JQuery, CSS3, JSON2, backbone.js, underscore.js, RDFQuery and VIE library) and runs in the latest version of any of the main browsers. The (desktop) Web based version which responds to mouse events has been adapted to both run in a smartphone/tablet (with touch interaction) as well as over Google TV (reacting to remote control events). The player incorporates support for the W3C Media Fragment syntax that should allow video to be accessed not as an entire media resource but in terms of a temporal and/or spatial part thereof. As the video plays, Javascript code checks for annotations on the next active video segment, and enables access to additional content when it is relevant to the concept annotating that segment via a plugin and widget architecture. Annotations refer to Linked Data resources and the ConnectME framework has collected links to content relevant to those resources using the Linked Services Infrastructure. The hypervideo player has a core that sustains the video playback mechanism and connects to the ConnectME Framework to retrieve the annotations in an initialization phase. A set of plugins is then attached to the core, each of which is specialized in recognizing a certain type of annotation resource. Plugins will retrieve and render relevant content for given resources and display them in the form of widgets. Widgets appear and disappear (as the related concept is present, and no longer present, in the video) from the right hand side list, by default only active widgets are shown (to reduce the distraction of the viewer from the video) but for navigation the full list can be
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The LIME player: https://github.com/tkurz/lime 9
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accessed at any time. To additionally support the viewer to navigate within hypervideo, markers on the time line indicate when concepts are present and by bringing a marker into focus (e.g. mouse over) a pop-up shows the viewer which concept(s) are present in that point of the video. Each plugin marks its widgets with a specific icon. Since plugins can be configured for any Linked Data source, the player architecture is very flexible regarding the content selected and displayed in a widget. A screencast of the annotation tool and hypervideo player can be seen at http://bit.ly/1511uvs
Figure 5: The MediaConnect interactive video player user interface.
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4. Experiment Planning and Execution

While the experiment allows for usage before, during and after a trip to Schladming, the main focus of the experiment initially was on visitors' experiences during their stay at Schladming. The delays in synchronizing with local stakeholders in Schladming (likely due to the FIS ski world championship) regarding support in deployment and content provisioning led to an adaption of the initial plan of conducting a run with a remotely deployed application. To mitigate risks of not being able to conduct an experiment in the winter season we adopted a semi-controlled study design which should deliver first indicators about the impact of the AR and Interactive Video interfaces on the Quality of Experience of users. For the study we adopted an experimental design which combines both quantitative and qualitative measures. We will describe the design and execution of individual experiments for the AR and Interactive Video part next and will highlight common aspects were appropriated.
4.1.
Impact of AR on the QoE for an Information Discovery Task
One goal of this experiment is to asses if AR has an impact on the QoE and subsequently a possible influence on business value generation. Cause and effect relationships between QoE and business value generation are not well understood, yet. Reliable measures were not available for this experiment but still we tried to get first (unverified) indicators.
4.1.1. Study Design and Procedure

The experiment was designed to deliver insights into the impact of AR on QoE beyond the specific implementation of our client application. Therefore, we designed a locator task which can be applied to a wide variety of other scenarios: finding an object with a certain attribute among a number of similar objects. In the case of the slope panorama this locator task was finding the hut with the lowest price (e.g., for the meal of the day) out of 16 huts. It was conducted under the following conditions: F4: An overlay of media items directly on the physical panorama poster only (AR view) F5: A digital map visualization (2D view)
I.e. we used one factor (interface) with two levels (F4/F5). Dependent variables of major interest were QoE dimensions described in more detail in Section 4.1.3.2 as well as task completion time and error rate. The starting interface condition (F4/F5) was randomized and participants gender was used as a blocking factor. Before the start of the experiment participants were briefed about the purpose of the study and filled in a written consent form. They were introduced to the study location and slope panorama poster at which the study took place. It was an A0 sized version of the actual panorama poster in Figure 1, which was mounted approximately 10 meters to the left at the faade of Planet-lanai (height of the top border 2m). At this poster they went through a learning phase, with a device given by the researcher (Samsung Galaxy SII), in which both interfaces were introduced. Afterwards, the main part of the study followed with the locator task in both interface conditions. Within this task we specifically focused on the aspect of navigation, rather than object selection and therefore only used one selection technique (touch). Prices could be
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uncovered by shortly touching on them and the hut with the lowest price (as seen from the user) could be selected by a one second dwell. Finally, the participants had to confirm their selection by pressing a button on the top of the screen (see Figure 6). One selection run was expected to have a 30-60 seconds duration, in total participants had to conduct 5 runs with possible breaks between the runs. After finishing one interface condition participants immediately filled in a QoE questionnaire regarding their usage of that interface. Afterwards, participants repeated the same task with the other interface condition and filled in the same QoE questionnaire (again for the current interface used). Then, participants filled in a background questionnaire (demographics, technology and tourism related indicators). At the end participants were given a voucher with a 10 Euro value. In total the experiment took around 30 minutes per participant.
Figure 6: The visualization of the locator task in the digital map view. Price labels are placed above the huts. A selected hut is visualized with a green bar.
4.1.2. Participants
In the study 18 volunteers participated, 6 female, 12 male. The age ranged from under 18 to 5564 years. Initially, all participants should have been acquired from local tourists visiting the region. However, through discussions with Schladming partners it was agreed that for this form of experiment (lasting around 30 minutes) recruitment of tourists through the researchers while at Schladming would be likely unsuccessful. Therefore, most participants were acquired beforehand through Schladming partners and hence were mostly locals. Nonetheless, efforts for recruiting volunteers on site were taken such as direct face-to-face conversations and distribution of flyers, however without success.
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4.1.3. Data Collection

We recorded data with on device data collection, questionnaires, field notes and video recordings. Selected measures for QoS and QoE are described next. 4.1.3.1. Quality of Service A major Quality of Service factor for mobile Augmented Reality experiences is the robustness of the employed pose tracking system. Therefore, in the experiment we will collect data that allows investigating the tracking performance while using an Augmented Reality view. Especially, we will record: Orientation data from the linear accelerometer and gyroscope (in Augmented Reality mode) 6 Degrees of Freedom (DOF) pose w.r.t. an object (the physical panorama - in Augmented Reality mode) GPS location (and accuracy indication) of the device
It still needs to be investigated which affect the QoS factor tracking has on QoE. 4.1.3.2. Quality of Experience Besides QoS data collection we focused on collecting rich data for QoE. Specifically, we employed the AttrakDiff2 questionnaire covering following QoE dimensions Hedonic Quality: Indicates to what extent the functions of a product enhance the possibilities of users, stimulate or communicate a particular identity. Hedonic quality is divided into two subqualities, namely identity and stimulation, where Hedonic Quality - Identity indicates how well a user identifies with the product and Hedonic Quality - Stimulation indicates the extent to which a product supports the needs of development and moving forward by offering novel, interesting and stimulating functions, contents, interactions and styles of presentation. Pragmatic Quality is focusing on more traditional usability aspects, specifically if users achieve their goals with the product. In addition we employed the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI), a multidimensional measurement device intended to assess participants subjective experience related to a target activity in controlled experiments. Specifically, we employed the Interest/Enjoyment Value/Usefulness subscales.
4.1.4. Hypothesis
We adapted our initial hypotheses to the comparative study context. Specifically, in this study we focused on H2: Participants will find the Augmented Reality view more enjoyable than the digital map view.
4.1.5. Results
The data analysis is still on-going at the time of submission of this deliverable.
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4.2.
Interactive Video Player
This experiment targets the use of the MediaConnect hypervideo video player. The video player has as unique source a promotional video of the Schladming area during the winter season. The video shows, alongside its frames, an interactive menu with items sliding over the video frame containing additional information about the currently mentioned concepts within the video. A screen shot of the application user interface can be seen in Fig.1. This experiment was conducted in 2 sessions: one in Vienna (Austria) and another one in Schladming (Austria). 13 volunteers participated. The experiment was conducted on a first generation iPad running Safari 5.1.7 (6533.18.5) browser. The device has a 32 bit colour depth and a 1024x768 resolution. The device orientation was always horizontal. The software parameters were set as follow: a) The researchers used the same video source - a 3.58 minute video describing the Schladming area in winter and containing 30 relevant annotation that target free open data (DBPedia), global information system data (Google maps, weather, routs), local business websites, YouTube video references, online audio references. b) The language parameter was set to 'de' (German language). c) The annotation model, content, temporal triggers and display style was the same in both locations. In both locations the testing environment consisted of a quiet room with wireless internet access. The testing sessions were designed for one person at a time. No group tests were designed for this first run.
4.2.1. Study design and procedure

The researcher starts by briefly explaining the tester the key steps of the experiment session and the terms in the informed consent form. After agreeing and signing the consent form, the tester is presented a demographics questionnaire. After filling out this questionnaire, the participant receives the iPad and (s)he starts the interactive video, by tapping the play button. During the play out, the tester is exposed to the semantic annotations in the form of sliding UI elements similar to buttons, called widgets, on the right hand side of the iPad's screen. The tester will tap the widgets and the video will pause. An overlaying window with additional information will appear. According to the annotation type, this window can be purely informative and non-interactive (ex: the info widgets) or an interactive window (ex: multilayer Google maps, responsive to iPad gestures, a YouTube video, a HTML5 audio player or iframes with website references). After the interactive video experience, the tester will answer an intermediate questionnaire, a short five question interview and a final questionnaire. The average experiment duration was 30 minutes.
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4.2.2. Participants
There were 13 participants (7 males, 6 females) to the interactive video first run experiment, 5 of which attended the testing sessions in Vienna, Austria and 8 tested the interactive video in Schladming, Austria. The participants testing the application in Schladming were a subset of the participants of the AR study. Their age range distribution is as follows: one participant was between 18-24 years old, nine in the 25-34 years interval, two in the 35-44 years interval and one was between 55-64 years old. 11 of the participants are of Austrian nationality, one is German and one is Italian. All testers are right handed. When asked about their general computer skills, four of the participants rated themselves as having medium skills, four had high skills and five had very high computer skills. Their interest in technology is rated as follows: one participant has low interest in technology, four of them rated themselves as having medium interest in technology; four of them have high interest and five have very high interest in technology. 2 testers described their frequency in watching online TV and video, such as YouTube as rare, 5 as occasionally and 6 as often (on a 5 point scale ranging from never to very often).
4.2.3. Data collection

The Google analytics engine was used to gather usability data targeting annotation and widget activity as a direct implementation of an ECC compliant data collection procedure was not finished at the run of the experiment. This analytics engine works as a stack that registers entries with the following structure: Entry = { [String] eventCategory = plugin name, [String] eventAction = event name, [String]eventActiveLabel = widget label, (Optional)[Float] eventValue = duration measured in milliseconds } This setup is similar to the ECC push client setup. Each client has a distinct registration code in the Google Analytics engine. The connection and registration is established before the initialization phase of the player. The following step is setting up the experiment parameters: participant user ID and linked data language parameter. One experiment session is registered as a distinct call of the client's player page. This does not imply a 2 way communication, unlike the ECC push-pull logic. We are using the ga.js collectors. This engine logs the measured data directly into the processing engine making real time reporting possible, as shown in the figure below (see Figure 7)3, similar to the ECC headless client and ECC container configuration4.
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Figure 7. The Google Analytics platform components5.
4.2.3.1. Quality of Experience The following events were tracked: a) Became Inactive this widget state triggers at the initialization part of the interactive video player (IV), as the widgets populate the widget list, and after the widget exceeds its active time. Visually, widgets in this state are displayed in grey colours as shown in Figure 8. These types of entities do not contain any event value.
Figure 8: Inactive widget
b) Became Active this widget state triggers when the video play-out reaches the beginning of the active annotation time interval. This means that the player will trigger this event on widgets that contain the current time of the video player cursor within their time interval. Active widgets contain coloured icons corresponding to the plugin that generates them and specific labels corresponding to the associated annotation as shown in Figure 9. These types of entities do not contain any event value.
Figure 9: Active widget
c) Clicked triggered when the tester clicks or taps on an active widget. The widget will expand into an overlaying modal window with additional interactive or non-interactive information. These types of entities do not contain any event value.
The Google Analytics platform description: https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/platform/

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d) Viewed triggered when the user closes an expanded widget. This entity records the time starting the click/tap of the widget until it's closing in milliseconds. It is used to determine the time spent by each participant on the enriched content of the IV. This time will be added to the video duration to determine the total time spent by each participant on the video player. This measure is valid as all participants watched the video in its entire length.
4.2.4. Hypothesis
In this study we focused on measuring the usability of the hypervideo player, specifically on answering the following questions: Do the participants find the currently implemented interface comfortable and to which degree? What type of information is the most interesting in the context of an interactive video? Will participants use this type of software in the context described in section 4.2?
4.2.5. Results
This section describes the software usage behaviour extracted from tracking both participant and software generated events such as: tapping on a widget, tapping on the help button, video time out triggers, annotation activation and deactivation. Section 4.2.4.1. contains an in-depth description of the relevant extracted data. Section 4.2.4.2 focuses on the participant description and associations between usage behaviour and some of the participant's particularities. 4.2.5.1. Interaction analysis Figure 10 shows that the number of participants was relatively small, but the time of interaction with the interactive player is very diverse. We can divide the testers in 3 sets according to the time and volume of interaction as follows:
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Participant interaction graph

SCHLR1_30 SCHLR1_7 SCHLR1_6 SCHLR1_5 SCHLR1_4 SCHLR1_3 SCHLR1_2 SCHL1_1 WIENR1_5 WIENR1_4 WIENR1_3 WIENR1_2 WIENR1_1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26
Time (minutes)
Figure 10: Duration of interaction with the Interactive Video player.
a) Low interaction testers are the testers that interacted the least with the video player. The set consists of participants who spent less than 2 minutes interacting with the video player (participants marked with orange). These participants chose to have a passive experience and preferred watching the video over the annotated content. Often they considered the sliding active widgets as being disruptive and found great difficulty in interacting with them. They considered the switch between video and expanded widgets quite uncomfortable. b) Average interaction testers are the testers that interacted in an average way with the video player. We define an average interaction as being included in a 5 to 7 minute interval. In Fig. 10 they are marked with the colour blue. This type of participants were comfortable with the interaction type and expanded the widgets after carefully reading the label. c) High interaction testers are the testers that focused on interacting with the widgets more than actually video content. They were comfortable with the interaction type and used it extensively. In this experiment the researchers focused on how the interaction does fit a wide range of users. I. II. III. Which type of widget was the most popular? What kind of information held most the user's attention? Which singularities within the widget set were most interesting?
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I. We define the popularity of a widget as the most chosen widget by the participants. In Figure 11 we present a chart of the most viewed widgets. A widget is considered viewed if a tester clicked at least one time in his test session on that active widget. We do not consider if the tester viewed the widget multiple times during his/her session. One view is assigned the weight of 1. For example, Schladming Weather is assigned 7 times of view because 7 distinct participants expanded this widget at least once in their test sessions. We define a popular widget as a widget that was viewed by more than half of the testers. This leads us to the subset marked with the colour green in the chart above (Figure 11). We can quickly conclude that participants were interested in the local business content (Hohnhaustenne leads to the website of the biggest and most popular event location in the Schladming area) and geographical information
Weg von Vienna Weg von Salzburg Weg von Graz Tritscher.at Sonnenbrille Snowboard Info Slalom Info Skipiste Info SkiLine Schladming Wetter Schladming Landkarte Schladming Info Rohrmoos-Untertal Info Rodeln Info Planai webcam Planai Tv Planai Info Planai Beach Klangpiste Jukebox Info Intersport Info Intersport Internet Hohenhaustenne HelpPlugin Gondola Freestyle-Skiing Info Die Blaue Donau Waltz 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Widget label
Number of views
(Schladming weather is an interactive map with weather information overlaying weather stations in the Schladming area) as well as social media platforms (Planai Beach is an embedded YouTube video).
Figure 11: Number of widget views. Copyright Graz University of Technology and other members of the EXPERIMEDIA consortium 2013 19
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II. An overall analysis of the widgets can be categorized by the plugins that create them, as Figure 12 shows. The local business widgets, info widgets and YouTube widgets (highlighted with the green colour) held the most interest.
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Widget cathegory views
10 5 0 Business Help Info Map Rout Weather Youtube
Figure 12: Number of widget views by category.
III. We define the interest in a widget as the average time spent on an expanded widget. An interesting widget is a widget with a high interest value and a low variance value. In Figure 13 we present a chart of interest in widgets. The chart contains the average value of interest calculated on the set of average time per view per participant for each viewed widget marked as the blue part of the bars. The standard deviation on the same set of values is marked with the red colour. For example: Seven distinct participants clicked on the Hohenhaustenne, meaning that the set of input values consists of the set of the seven interest values as in Table 1.
Event Label Hohenhaustenne Hohenhaustenne Hohenhaustenne Hohenhaustenne Hohenhaustenne Hohenhaustenne Hohenhaustenne Hohenhaustenne Hohenhaustenne
View duration (ms) 16577.50 6975.00 4825.50 11567.00 30336.50 25649.00 17525.00 85997.00 26511.00
Table 1. Time spent with the Hohenhaustenne widget.
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Weg von Salzburg Tritscher.at Sonnenbrille Snowboard Info Slalom Info Skipiste Info SkiLine Schladming Wetter Schladming Landkarte Schladming Info Rodeln Info Planai Tv Planai Info Planai Beach Klangpiste Jukebox Info Intersport Info Intersport Internet Hohenhaustenne Gondola Freestyle-Skiing Info Die Blaue Donau Waltz 0 50000 100000 150000 200000 250000 300000
Figure 13: Average time (blue) spent with each widget. The standard deviation is stacked with red colour.
We can conclude that the most interesting widgets target geographical information: Weg von Salzburg (Route from Salzburg to Schladming) and local business. Participants showed high interest in the local Tritscher.at which is a ski rental shop and in the Sonnenbrille widget which targets a particular pair of sunglasses in the Intersport sportswear vendor online shop.
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EXPERIMEDIA
Another very interesting widget can be considered the Gondola, which shows the schedule and status of the Sky Gondola service in Schladming. We can as well note a particularity in the geographical widgets that point to the Schladming satellite map and weather. These have elevated interest average values but a high standard deviation due to the fact that the majority of the testers are Schladming residents. There was no clear correlation between the level of the participants computer skills and the rate of interaction with the video player. The same result was obtained from correlating the general interest in technology and the rate on interaction. However, technically advanced users needed a shorter accommodation period with the interface and no guidance from the researchers during the interactive video play out. Testers with medium and low computer skills needed guidance with the interface. Only one participant accessed the help guide during the play out. Researchers observed that the average time for understanding the user interface was 20 seconds, during which the video was not stopped/paused by any of the testers and two sets of widgets were exchanged. The testers welcomed the idea of interactive video and the majority of them felt comfortable using such a technology. There was an open debate regarding the relevance of the annotations. Testers from Schladming pointed out that the video was boring for them as it described an area very well known to them, but the participants in Vienna showed strong interest in the video and found the widgets helpful. Although there was an extended interest, shown by all participants, regarding the widgets targeting local business, the iPad browser restricted scrolling within the iframe and this created a well noted confusion. The YouTube videos proved to be a comfortable integration as a video within a video type of display maintained the flow of viewing.. The interaction with the maps was known by all participants a priori. We used the Google maps engine to render interactive maps, weather information and routes. Info widgets had a high rate of accesses but the time spent on them is relatively low.
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EXPERIMEDIA
5. Conclusion
This deliverable reported on the design of the EXPERIMEDIA MEDIAConnect experiment, which focuses on enriching tourists' experiences when interacting with local services and products through the provision of novel mobile interface technologies like Augmented Reality and Interactive Video. We described the current state of implementation and experiment planning and execution, including factors which lead to an adaption from initial plans. The analysis of the data is preliminary and still on going. Conclusions on the design of a consecutive run cannot conclusively be drawn at this point. However, from the experiences of this first run it is clear that better communication channels with Schladming partners will be a key factor deciding on the success or failure of a following run, both concerning the availability and relevance of content (then for the summer season) and for the deployment of the experiment.
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D4.5.2 MediaConnect Experiment Progress Report v1.0

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D4.5.2 MediaConnect Experiment Progress Report v1.0

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D4.5.

2 MediaConnect Experiment Progress Report

3. Experiment Architecture and Implementation

Mobile Augmented Reality Client

3.1.1. Physical Slope Panoramas

3.1.2. Relevant Content Sources

3.1.3. 3D Model of the Ski Resort Area

3.1.4. Interaction Design

Interactive Video Player

The LIME player: https://github.com/tkurz/lime 9

Figure 5: The MediaConnect interactive video player user interface.

4. Experiment Planning and Execution

Impact of AR on the QoE for an Information Discovery Task

4.1.1. Study Design and Procedure

4.1.3. Data Collection

Interactive Video Player

4.2.1. Study design and procedure

4.2.3. Data collection

Figure 7. The Google Analytics platform components5.

Figure 8: Inactive widget

Figure 9: Active widget

The Google Analytics platform description: https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/platform/

Participant interaction graph

Figure 10: Duration of interaction with the Interactive Video player.

10 5 0 Business Help Info Map Rout Weather Youtube

Figure 12: Number of widget views by category.

Table 1. Time spent with the Hohenhaustenne widget.

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