IADIS e-learning conference

Designing empathy:

the role of a “control room” in an e-learning environment

Annie Gentès Marie Cambone

1- Introduction

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Existing litterature:

CLCW: Computer-supported collaborative work

CSCL: Computer-supported collaborative learning

Lev Manovitch, 2001, p. 90:

« Cultural interfaces of the 1990’s walk uneasy path between the

richness of control provided in general purpose HCI, and the

« immersive » experience of traditional cultural objects such as books

and movies »

=> Control panel: virtual instrument panel

1 Introduction | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

18-06-2012 IADIS e-learning 2012

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1 Introduction | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

• Our goal:

To design an interface for a virtual class

• Our questions:

. How can the system of representation support the feeling of empathy

amongst participants through a delicate staging of space, people and

of interactions within this space?

. How can a participant get first a feeling of togetherness and second a

feeling of empathy with other participants?


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• Our field:

“VUE a virtual class”: a virtual environment, a collaborative, immersive

and synchronous online service for professional training.

• 2 interfaces:

Interface “conference” : 1 teacher / 15-30 learners

Interface “work group”: 4 learners

1 Introduction | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6


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“Student” interface in conference mode, VUE


1 Introduction | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

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Content

1- Introduction 2- Design questions 3- Design methodology 4- Description of the design proposition 5- Results and discussion 6- Conclusion

2- Design questions: Exploring visual solutions for empathy

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1 | 2 Design question | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

Empathy is:

• The basis of intersubjectivity (Decety, 2002)

• Present in every interaction

• The simultaneous sharing of psychological states by the partners of

an interaction and a cognitive ability to understand and internally see

from others viewpoint.


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Our major challenges:

How do the design choices allow for the feeling of empathy?

1) How do we adjust different view points to different activities?

2) How do we graphically represent the students? What types of

avatars or photographic representations should we choose?

To conclude, how do the design choices allow for the feeling of

empathy?

1 | 2 Design question | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6


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Our team:

• Information and communication researchers

• Designers

• Developers

=> We explored how empathy is supported by a multi-modal

representation of self and others

1 | 2 Design question | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6


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3 – Design methodology: media centered design and “contradictory semiotic analysis”

23-02-2012

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1 | 2 | 3 Design methodology | 4 | 5 | 6

Our methodology: “Contradictory semiotic analysis”:

• A semiotic analysis

• A study of the convergent effects of themes and the diverging effects

of media

• A expansion of the concept of empathy

• 2 stages


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1. A semiotic analysis of e-learning platforms

• Points analyzed: description of environments, presentation of

actors, terms of interaction, possibilities of multiple points of view

• Results:

- The dispersion of users in the representations of the class made

it difficult to create a feeling of togetherness and empathy

- Most platforms strive to strike a balance between the realistic 3D

representation of the classroom and working tools.



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2. The analysis of the concept of empathy in media

• How issues of self-representation, the representation of presence

and management of multiple viewpoints have been aesthetically

treated in:

painting, photography, film, comics, video games, photo-novels,

etc.

• We selected a number of elements for building a

“cinematographic” grammar, then, we adapted them to our device



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User tests: About the graphic design

• Panel:

- Employees working in different fields,

- from 22 to 49 years-old

• Method:

- The manipulation of a prototype,

- a questionnaire

- a focus group



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4- Description of the design proposition: VUE, a collaborative, immersive and synchronous online service

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1 | 2 | 3 | 4 Description | 5 | 6

“Teacher” interface in conference mode, VUE


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1 | 2 | 3 | 4 Description | 5 | 6


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“Student” interface in lecture, VUE

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 Description | 5 | 6


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“Teacher” interface in lecture, VUE

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 Description | 5 | 6


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5- Results and discussion

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The semiotic analysis of e-learning platforms

• None of them recreates a classroom atmosphere

• None of them represents whispers and background noises

Our visual solutions:

• Offer different plans thanks to the angles of camera

• A video control room that provides the users with different

viewpoints

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 Results and discussion | 6


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An omniscient viewpoint

-From the back, in an

omniscient view point

- The avatar in the

classroom: stimulating

maximum immersion



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Representation of the

students

- It is not necessary to

represent everybody in

great detail.

- Representing the

classroom allows not to

feel alone



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Visual effects to

simulate the feeling of

togetherness

-offer the equivalent of a

video control room that

provides the users with

different viewpoints on

the same situation.

- empower users to

choose the relevant point

of view, as if choosing

from different cameras.



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A semiotic

construction used in

comics and photo-

novel

- Shot: view from the

rostrum to the students:

the upper zone

- Reverse-shots: lower

zone



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All the teacher tools in

one screen

- Too complicated to

change the angle of

camera

- No blind spot



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The necessity of a “control room”:

- The control room in television broadcast is the place where the

video feeds from the different cameras can be watched. The

production team selects the video feed that is going to be broadcasted

by TV channels.

• The “digital control room”

- The user select the « camera » that she sees as better fitting ther

need to undestand the situation.

- A visual tool affecting the way the information is accessed.


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6- Conclusion

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1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 conclusion

• Media centered design methodology:

- Not enough to study how people interact in the “real world”

-Offers visual solutions to promote empathy and the feeling of

togetherness

=> Confronting media and importing visual grammars frome one

media to another


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1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 conclusion

• The design challenge:

- The experimentation shows that the users felt more involved in the

learning process with different viewpoints.

- To propose a king of control room to promote a feeling of

togetherness

• But

- How do we organize the feeling of togetherness without creating a

feeling of distraction?

- An interface too elaborate or associated with a video game can

actually be detrimental to the overall attention of the learners.


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1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 conclusion

Future research projects:

-Concept of modularity

=> To explore the way to channel the attention of the learner by

visual effects.


Thank you for your attention

Annie Gentès: [email protected]

Marie Cambone: [email protected]