1. (Tele) Presence and Usability Matthew Lombard, PhD BTMM, MM&C, ISPR
November 8, 2007

2. Overview What is (tele)presence? The growing (tele)presence field
Who cares?
Usability and presence
Example

3. What Is (Tele)Presence?
The evolution of media technologies - drawings, print, radio, film, television, computers, IMAX, simulator rides, virtual reality, AI agents…

4. What Is (Tele)Presence?
… has produced mediated experiences that seem increasingly natural, intuitive, comfortable, easy, automatic, and ‘real’ because the technology seems increasingly less like technology.

5. What is (Tele)Presence?
“the extent to which one feels present in the mediated environment, rather than in the immediate physical environment” (Steuer, 1992)
“A sense of ‘being there’ in a displayed scene or environment” (Barfield, Zeltzer, Sheridan, & Slater (1995)
“the perceptual illusion of nonmediation” (Lombard & Ditton, 1997)

6. What is (Tele)Presence?
"Presence (a shortened version of the term ‘telepresence’) is a psychological state or subjective perception in which even though part or all of an individual's current experience is generated by and/or filtered through human-made technology, part or all of the individual's perception fails to accurately acknowledge the role of the technology in the experience.” (International Society for Presence Research, 2000)

7. What is (Tele)Presence?

8. What is (Tele)Presence?

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11. What is (Tele)Presence?

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21. What is (Tele)Presence?

22. What is (Tele)Presence?

23. What is (Tele)Presence?
Virtual Characters
Lara Diki T-babe Webbie-
Tookay

24. What is (Tele)Presence?

25. What is (Tele)Presence?

26. What is (Tele)Presence?
Sony’s Aibo
“From the first day you play with Aibo, it will become your new companion for the Millennium.”

27. What is (Tele)Presence?

28. What is (Tele)Presence?

29. What is (Tele)Presence?

30. Growing (Tele)P Field
ISPR hosts first systematic database (n=1834)

31. Growing (Tele)P. Field

32. Growing (Tele)P. Field 10 Annual International Workshops on Presence:
PRESENCE 1998: Suffolk, England
PRESENCE 1999: Colcester, England
PRESENCE 2000: Delft, The Netherlands
PRESENCE 2001: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
PRESENCE 2002: Porto, Portugal
PRESENCE 2003: Aalborg, Denmark
PRESENCE 2004: Valencia, Spain
PRESENCE 2005: London, UK
PRESENCE 2006: Cleveland, Ohio, USA
PRESENCE 2007: Barcelona, Spain

33. Growing (Tele)P. Field

34. Who cares? It’s ‘central’ – relates to many fields and endeavors
It will be increasingly common
It has many potential effects – attention, memory, social judgment, persuasion, enjoyment, task performance…
It’s just cool

35. Who cares? Art Business Education Entertainment Ethics …
Health/Medicine
Military
Philosophy
Politics
Psychology …

36. Usability and Presence
More presence means greater usability
Make technology adapt to people, not people adapt to technology
A natural, intuitive interface that hides technology  presence  usability  efficiency/productivity/satisfaction…

37. Usability and Presence
How to evoke presence?
Big displays (high field of view)
Multiple senses (sound)
Interactivity
Obvious affordances
Perceptual and social realism
Spatial cues – you’re in a place
Social cues – you’re interacting with a person
Meet natural expectations for dealing w. ‘real’ world

38. Example Karl Horvath’s dissertation study:
THE COMPUTER AS INFORMATION INTERMEDIARY:
USING SOCIAL AND SPATIAL CUES TO EVOKE PRESENCE IN COMPUTER USERS AND OPTIMIZE HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION

39. Example
Low spatial, low social cues

40. Example
High spatial, high social cues

41. Example
Low spatial, high social cues

42. Example
High spatial, low social cues

43. Example Results: Social cues  Social presence
Spatial cues  Spatial presence
Social/spatial cues  Satisfaction, enjoyment, comprehension, perceived ability, likelihood of use
Social + spatial  biggest effects
For all experience levels

44. Example
Bottom lines: (Tele)Presence looks like a useful concept for increasing usability Researchers and practitioners in both areas should talk!

45. http://matthewlombard.com http://ispr.info
For more information…
Matthew Lombard