2016CHI Paper Can Eye Help You?: Effects of Visualizing Eye Fixations on Remote Collaboration

Figure 1: Conceptual figures and implementations of our remote collaboration framework under two different scenarios: (A-1)
fixed device scenario offers remote collaboration experience for physical tasks on a small workspace. (A-2) a remote collaborator
monitors a workspace through a fixed point-of-view camera and provides instructions to a worker using his/her eye fixations and
hand gestures. (A-3) the system then visualizes a history of collaborator’s point of gaze (green line) as well as hands directly
in front of the worker. (B-1) wearable device scenario addresses remote collaboration in larger workspaces. (B-2) the system
provides the view of a wearable camera worn by the worker. (B-3) the worker was allowed to see the relative direction and
position of collaborator’s eye fixations through an optical see-through head-mounted display.

ABSTRACT
In this work, we investigate how remote collaboration between a local worker and a remote collaborator will change if
eye fixations of the collaborator are presented to the worker.
We track the collaborator’s points of gaze on a monitor screen
displaying a physical workspace and visualize them onto the
space by a projector or through an optical see-through headmounted display. Through a series of user studies, we have
found the followings: 1) Eye fixations can serve as a fast and
precise pointer to objects of the collaborator’s interest. 2)
Eyes and other modalities, such as hand gestures and speech,
are used differently for object identification and manipulation. 3) Eyes are used for explicit instructions only when they
are combined with speech. 4) The worker can predict some intentions of the collaborator such as his/her current interest
and next instruction.