Examination of Alternative Interactive Displays for the Merging of Two Cultures: Computer Interaction and Television Viewing

Albert Badre, Kathy K. Baxter, and Martin Tuck

ABSTRACT

There are two cultures in our society today that some researchers are trying to merge into one. Computer users form one of those cultures. Like the rest of the population, they are familiar with and have used a television. However, not all television users (the second culture) are familiar with and have used a computer. Computer users actively manipulate their environment to receive information. Television users passively receive information. Finally, computers are manipulated and viewed proximally while televisions are manipulated and viewed at a distance.

Web access via television seeks to merge these two cultures but no one has investigated how performance is affected by their merger. The proposed study will examine performance in this hybrid environment. Both manipulation and viewing of information at proximate and distal locations will be examined. The experimental tasks were chosen to lend ecological validity to the study. Further, satisfaction/preference data will be recorded for information viewing and manipulation location.

INTRODUCTION

Our society is addicted to technology. Often we use new technology to solve a problem before we know if the problem actually exists. Research should first be done to decide if a problem really exists and then additional research should focus on the appropriate solution. The newest technology available may not be the best answer.

This proposal examines the merging of two cultures in our society; television viewers and computer users. This is being done with the emergence of television based devices for web browsing. We seek to determine if there is actually a problem that develops from this merger. This exploratory study also has the ambitious goal of determining a possible solution.

Television based web browsers are an attempt to bring the Internet into homes of those who do not own or use computers. Nearly 40% of homes in the US owned personal computers by the end of 1995 (Robinson, Barth, & Kohut, 1997). The characteristics of computer owners and non-computer owners differ however. The demographic characteristics of computer owners match those of groups in society that watch less television (college educated and high income). These individuals do watch television though. During Prime Time (peak television usage), 32% of adults with college education watch TV (Coffey & Stipp, 1997). Not all television viewers use computers though. A question arises regarding the differences of the two cultures when they are merged into one with television based web browsers. Is it possible for these two cultures to merge without implementation problems?

First of all, computer users actively manipulate their environment to receive information. Television users passively receive information. One of television's main strengths is that it offers relaxing entertainment. A computer, and more specifically, the Internet, is much better at interaction, communication, and informing (Stipp, 1995). Interestingly, 40% of computer owners have the computer and a television in the same room, enabling them to use the two together or go back and forth with ease (SRI, 1996). This suggests that television with web capability fits with current computer owners conceptions of computer and television usage. It is doubtful this statement would apply to non-computer users, however.

Another issue of the merger of television and computer cultures is the location of viewing and manipulation. Computers are viewed and manipulated proximally while televisions are viewed and manipulated at a distance. Most computer use occurs at a desk. Standards set by the American National Standards Institutes and the Human Factors Society (ANSI/HFS) state that the minimum computer viewing distance must be greater than or equal to 30cm (12 inches). Almost all users find a comfortable viewing range between 30 to 40cm.

Recommended television viewing location has typically been based on perceptual and health considerations. As cited by Coffey, et-al. (1997), McVey (1970) recommended optimum viewing distance of 6.25 screen widths at a viewing angle of 9 degrees from the horizontal based on optimal perception. The National Center for Radiological Health (1968) indicated a viewing distance of 215.1cm for those under 15 years of age and 298.4cm for those over 15 years of age. This recommendation was based on the fact that older color receivers emitted radiation. This is no longer the case. Most adults have a favorite location from which to view the television (a particular chair or couch). The average distance from the television for adults is 336.8cm with a visual angle of 6.6 degrees (Nathan, Anderson, Field, & Collins, 1985). Children are more variable in their viewing location. About 10% of the children observed by Nathan and his colleagues (1985) viewed the television within 91.4cm but the average distance was 225.3cm (Nathan, et-al., 1985). The greatest predictor of viewing location for both children and adults was time on furniture (furniture tends to be placed further away from the television set), followed by viewable room area (i.e. size of the room area from which the TV can be viewed) and screen width (larger screens yield greater viewing distances). Regardless of whether people are watching TV or using a computer, they tend to chose a location for optimal visual angle.

Web television combines aspects of both technologies so research should focus on the appropriate viewing and manipulation location for optimal performance and maximum satisfaction. Since the output is displayed on a television, it may be assumed that data viewing and manipulation is best accomplished remotely. However, since a great deal of text viewing and fine manipulation is occurring, performance and satisfaction would be maximized if the user were located proximally to the input and output devices.

A final issue addresses what type of tools would be appropriate for such manipulation. Few non-computer users can type efficiently. Other tools such as a trackball, stylus pen, or voice input may be more effective and yield higher satisfaction ratings.

This study attempts to determine if a problem even exists in the merging of the television and computer cultures. It further attempts to find the optimal viewing and manipulation location as well as determining the most appropriate tool to complete the tasks. The tasks in this study include completing crossword puzzles, entering URLs and navigating through those web pages, and viewing various types of web pages at different locations. These tasks were chosen to lend ecological validity to the study. Because this is an exploratory study, only college students will be included in the sample. In later studies, older adults and non-computer users may be included to examine the effects of age and computer use on performance and preference.

METHODS

Subjects

Ninety-six male and female students will be recruited from undergraduate psychology courses at the Georgia Institute of Technology. These students will range in age from 18 to 25 (although we are not limiting the age of the participants). They must have 20/20 corrected/non-corrected vision to participate.

Equipment/Materials

Output devices will consist of 1) a Wacom model PL-300V display tablet for proximate output (see Figure 1), and 2) a 28 inch video monitor for distal output. Input devices will consist of 1) the standard Wacom stylus for use with, and included in the PL-300V package, and 2) a bimanual trackball. An IBM compatible computer running customized task applications under Microsoft Windows 95 will be used. Video output from this computer will be directed to multiple destinations using a VOPEX port splitter.

Customized task applications will consist of crossword puzzles and web pages which will be created specifically for this experiment (see Appendices A and B). These were designed to be identical to real-world applications. A final survey will be administered at the end of the experiment (see Appendix B).

Design

A 2x2x3x3 mixed factorial design will be used. There are two between-subject variables, data manipulation location and data viewing location, with two levels each, proximate and distal. The two remaining independent variables are within-subject variables. These are tasks and tools. Tasks has three levels; crossword puzzles, URL input and web page navigation, and web page viewing. Tools also has three levels. For the crossword puzzle and URL tasks, the tools are virtual keyboard with trackball, virtual keyboard with stylus pen, and voice. For the web page viewing task, the levels are video only, text only, and text plus video. Our dependent variables include completion time for each task, input accuracy, and participant preference for data viewing and manipulation location. Participant age and gender will also be recorded.

Procedure

Before the experiment begins, each participant will look at an eyechart to be sure their vision is 20/20 corrected/non-corrected. Next, each participant will be randomly assigned to one of four groups; 1) viewing proximate, manipulating proximate, 2) viewing proximate, manipulating distal, 3) viewing distal, manipulating proximate, and 4) viewing distal, manipulating distal (see Table 1 for definitions).

Table 1

Participants will complete three crossword puzzles first (see Appendix A). They will use a different tool to complete each puzzle; 1) a trackball on a virtual keyboard, 2) a stylus pen on a virtual keyboard, and 3) voice to input individual letters. Order of presentation will be counterbalanced (see Table 2). A list of clues will be given and in parentheses next to the clue will be the answer. The object is not to test participants' problem solving ability but to test their ability to use the various tools in the particular group assignment.

Table 2

Next, each participant will enter a URL and choose specified links on web pages using the above three tools. Again, order of tool use will be counterbalanced. Finally, participants will view web pages with 1) graphics only, 2) text only, and 3) graphics plus text. Order of presentation will also be counterbalanced. The experimenter will instruct the participants to look first at the television screen. No output will be provided on the hand-held device. The experimenter will then instruct participants to look at the hand-held device and no information will be displayed on the television screen. Participants will be asked where they prefer to view the information in each case. This will be followed by a brief survey (see Appendix B) and debriefing.

PREDICTED RESULTS

This is an exploratory study so the authors have only a few tentative predictions of participants' performances. The first set of predicted results regards the variation of a single subject's performance when using different input tools (trackball, stylus or voice). First, it is thought that individuals will perform better (higher accuracy rate, faster completion time) on the virtual keyboard using the stylus pen than by using the trackball when data manipulation is proximate. The opposite effect is expected when data manipulation is distal. It is further predicted that voice input will result in superior performance over trackball and stylus pen on the virtual keyboard regardless of location of data manipulation. These three hypothesized results are made for both the Crossword Puzzle task and the URL Entry task.

The next set of predicted results regards group assignment. For the Crossword Puzzle and URL Entering tasks, it is believed that participants in homogenous groups (groups viewing proximate and manipulating proximate or groups viewing distal and manipulating distal) will out perform participants in heterogeneous groups (groups viewing proximate while manipulating distal or groups viewing distal while manipulating proximate). This holds for both data viewing and data manipulation. Finally, it is predicted that participants in the viewing proximate, manipulating proximate group will have the highest satisfaction ratings.

The final set of predicted results deal with the Web Page Viewing tasks. It is expected that participants will report higher satisfaction ratings when viewing video-only web pages distally and when viewing text-only web pages proximally. Pages containing both text and video will receive equal satisfaction rates for distal and proximate locations. No effect of Tool ordering is expected within the Crossword Puzzle, URL Entering, and Web Page Viewing tasks.

REFERENCES

American National Standards for Human Factors Engineering of Visual Display Terminal Workstations (1988). The Human Factors Society, Inc.

Coffey, S. & Stipp, H. (1997). The interactions between computer and television usage. Journal of Advertising Research, 37(2), 61-67.

Nathan, J.G., Anderson, D.R., Field, D.E., & Collins, P. (1985). Television viewing at home: Distances and visual angles of children and adults. Human Factors, 27(4), 467-476.

Robinson, J.P., Barth, K., & Kohut, A. (1997). Social impact research: Personal computers, mass media, and use of time. Social Science Computer Review, 15(1), 56-82.

Statistical Research, Inc. (1996). 1996 SMART home technology survey.

Stipp, H. (1995). I want my old TV! Forecast, 3(2), 18-28.

Appendix A: Crossword Puzzles

Appendix B: Survey

Participant: __________

Do you own a television based web browser? ______

If so, how often do you use it? ________ hours/week

How many hours/week do you watch TV? ________

How many hours/week do you use a computer? _______

Did you prefer viewing video web page close-up (on the hand-held device) or far away (on the TV)? ______________

Why? _______________________________________________

Did you prefer viewing text web page close-up (on the hand-held device) or far away (on the TV)? ______________________________________________________

Why? ______________________________________________________

Did you prefer viewing text plus video web page close-up (on the hand-held device) or far away (on the TV)? ________________________________________________

Why?_______________________________________________

Would you prefer viewing (i.e. reading) crossword puzzles close up (on the hand-held device) or far away (on the TV)? _____________________________________

Why? ______________________________________________________

Would you prefer answering (i.e. filling in the blanks) the crossword puzzles close-up (on the hand-held device) or far away (on the TV)? _________ ______________

Why? ______________________________________________________

Would you prefer viewing the URL close up (on the hand-held device) or far away (on the TV)? ______________________________________________________

Why? _______________________________________________________

Do you prefer typing in the URL close-up (using the hand-held device) or far away (using the hand-held device but seeing it appear on the TV)? _____________________

Why? _______________________________________________________

Contact information:

Albert N. Badre
Graphics, Visualization & Usability Center
College of Computing
801 Atlantic Drive
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA 30332-0280
U.S.A.
Phone: 404 894-2598
E-mail : albert.badre@cc.gatech.edu