1. Women Take a Wider View Mary Czerwinski, Desney Tan, George Robertson Microsoft Research and CMU Women Take a Wider View

2. Overview Research on larger displays Wider fields of view Examine new interaction techniques Gender differences—often reported that females underperform males in 3D nav Desired outputs: novel HCI techniques that benefit everyone; principles to support navigation

3. Future Displays—Mass Multiples

4. Future Displays: Stanford’s I- Room

5. Future Displays-MSR

6. Large Display Efforts Gender/FOV/Large Display Findings Women take a wider field of view to build cognitive maps of virtual spaces Elegant principle of nav design that benefits females without male cost Unlocking the “code” behind principles from psychology and good design in navigation tasks

7. Prior Work—Nav & Gender Females known to tend to navigate by landmarks in the environment Importance of landmarks acknowledged in virtual world design (e.g., Darken, Elvins, Vinshon, etc.) Men known to navigate by broader bearings (e.g., N, S, E & W) Gender differences often magnified in virtual worlds (e.g., Waller, Hunt & Knap, 1998)

8. Prior Work--FOV Much evidence that restricting FOV leads to performance decrements Increasing FOV to 90 degrees allows overlapping sequence of fixations in memory; faster cognitive map construction Wider FOV results in better eye-hand coordination and tracking behavior Especially when visual complexity increases No gender effects mentioned in literature

9. Experiments 1 & 2 (CHI 2001) Examined novel navigation techniques Used large, 36 inch display (Arcturus) 2 rear projectors onto a a semi-curved tinted Plexiglas surface using Windows multimonitor support 8:3 aspect ratio (twice as wide as normal displays) 36 x 14 inches 2048 x 768 pixel display surface FOV = 75 degrees Also smaller, 17 inch display (~33 degree FOV) Figure. Arcturus 36" display showing study world.

10. Experiment 1: Test Design 17 users (7 female) Procedure Find, identify, pick up, drop cubes at target pads Cubes scattered randomly Participants placed 4 cubes on 4 pads in each of 4 conditions, all counterbalanced Deadline of 5 minutes Testing nav techniques Measured trial times

11. World Dimensions Tutorial world 300 x 300 meters, 4 objects Test world 500 x 500, 23 objects (tents, roller coasters, and rides) Both worlds had 4 “target cubes” and “target drop pads” Object was to put 4 cubes on 4 corresponding pads as quickly as possible

12. Experiment 2: Conditions Chose best nav techniques from Exp. 1 Exp. 2: 3x2 within subjects design Basic navigation Speed-coupled flying with orbit Speed-coupled flying with orbit/glide Large Display Small Display

13. 0 50 100 150 200 250 Total Time per Condition (sec) Small Display Large Display female male female

14. Experiments 1 & 2 Summary Larger display/wide fov may narrow gender gap on performance in 3D navigation Unanswered questions… What tasks do they enhance? Why? What about them causes better/worse performance? Cause of gender effect for navigation tasks?

15. Experiment 3 Goals--replicate and extend findings from Experiment 2 Hypothesis: wider FOV benefits females more than males Also, better control for display size (all on one display) DFOV to GFOV ratios identified Design FOV x display size x gender 32.5 v. 75 degree FOVs, 18 & 36 inches wide displays

16. Experiment 3: Methods 32 intermediate to advanced PC users (17 Female)--No 3D gamers Avg. age = 41 (19 to 60 years old) DFOV x GFOV ratios: Small-narrow = ~1:1, small-wide=~1:2, large-narrow=~2:1, and large-wide=~1:1 FOV means GFOV from here on out All conditions run on large display

17. Experiment 3: Procedure Same task as in Experiments 1 & 2 After 4 cubes found, 3 “pointing” trials 1 object and 1 drop pad were removed from world Participants had to point at each object from 3 random locations (spatial memory measure) 450 MHz Pentium II Dell computer

18. Experiment 3: Dependent Measures Trial time (for all 4 cubes) Travel distance Travel height (measure of efficiency) User satisfaction Pointing error Kit of Factor Referenced Cognitive Tests MV2 and MV3—map memory measures

19. Experiment 3: Results Map Memory, N.S., t(29)=-0.29, p=.77 Performance data 2 (gender) x 2 (screen size) x 2 (FOV) repeated measures MANOVA Percent correct, N.S. Main effects Gender Males faster (193 v. 226 seconds) and flew higher (16.5 v. 13.8 meters)

20. Experiment 3: Results Main effects continued Larger display conditions on avg. resulted in Less pointing error (14.8 v. 15.4 meters error) Greater distance traveled (6918 v. 5461 meters) More flying (15.5 v. 14.9 meters height) Faster trial times (205 v. 214 seconds)

21. Experiment 3: Results Wider FOV’s on avg. resulted in Less pointing error (14.8 v. 15.3 meters error) Shorter distance traveled (5777.4 v. 6601.7 m.) Higher flying (15.8 v. 14.6 meters) Faster trial times (199.85 v. 218.7 seconds) Planned comparison: M-F difference in large display, wide FOV condition N.S.

22. Experiment 3: Trial Times

23. Difference between M-F Trial Times

24. Experiment 3: Pointing Error

25. Gender Strategy Differences

26. Experiment 3: Discussion User Satisfaction: 12/15 males and 14/17 females preferred wider fov conditions Observed typical overall male superiority Large display, wide FOV condition reduces that superiority (trial times, pointing error) Opposing gender strategies for wide fov conditions

27. Experiment 4: Females Only What about large displays and wide FOVs helps females? Does seeing more landmarks through eye or head movements on screen help? Possibly offloads cognitive task to perceptual system Females worse at constructing cognitive maps Better at spatial memory tasks Perhaps large-wide viewing conditions lesson demands on cognitive system and help build map Hypothesis: Females should benefit more from wider FOV in more complex navigation conditions on large display

28. Experiment 4: Methods 13 Females (22 to 52 years old, avg.=36.7) Intermediate to advanced PC users No 3D gamers Same task as in Experiments 1-3, except no pointing tasks or memory tests Varied complexity of worlds (12 v. 23 items) 2 (world complexity) x 2 (FOV) design, large display condition only

29. Experiment 4 Results: Trial Times 2 (complexity) x 2 (FOV) RM ANOVA Main effects Complexity (dense worlds reliably slower to navigate) FOV (wider FOV reliably faster to navigate) Complexity x FOV interaction N.S. Though wider FOV did benefit denser world navigation slightly more, on average Hypothesis not strongly supported

30. Experiment 4: FOV x Complexity

31. Exp. 4 Results: Distance Females traveled reliably shorter distances with wider FOV Same strategy seen in Experiment 3 No other effects significant User Satisfaction 11/13 preferred wider FOV “With the wide FOV, you can quickly pinpoint the object and move toward it. The small FOV causes you to lose orientation…”.

32. Experiment 4: Discussion Wider FOVs benefited females more, on average, in complex worlds, but N.S. May have had too few participants Future study will include both males and females, greater world complexity and wider fields of view

33. Current & Future Studies Current study shows no gender differences with 2D, productivity tasks between large and small displays No egocentric movement Could be that optical flow cues are causing the gender specific findings Study next month to test this hypothesis

34. Preliminary Principles—Field of View Use a wider field of view (~75 degrees) coupled with a large display (~36 inches) for better female navigability Works for both simple and complex information spaces Ensures females navigate as quickly and accurately as males on search and manipulation tasks in novel environments Could be critical in educational and training settings

35. Conclusion User research plays “pivotal” role in developing advanced technology @MSR Leading to better designs Identifying new psychological principles Blurring the line between basic and applied research Product teams see value (e.g., big display surfaces are embraced due to findings)