Exploring the Design Space of Augmented Television
Supervisor: Dr Pejman Saeghe
School: Computing Science
Industry Partner: BBC R&D
Description:
Television (TV) content and viewing habits are constantly evolving. From watching linear audiovisual 2D content on TV sets in the living room, we have moved to a phase where TV-like content can be consumed on demand, on any device, and anywhere. The next evolutionary phase of content consumption will incorporate immersive interactive displays, e.g., augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) – together typically referred to as extended reality (XR), thanks to the expected mass adoption of XR devices. For instance, imagine a protagonist of a nature documentary exiting a TV screen and interacting with the viewers in the viewing environment (Figure 1). This concept is typically referred to as Augmented TV (ATV) – where a conventional TV viewing experience is enhanced/transformed using virtual artefacts (e.g., holograms) and auxiliary information, delivered using XR technology.
In the context of broadcasters’ original intentions (inform, educate, and entertain), ATV provides a vast array of opportunities and challenges. Specifically, how can ATV be used to improve information delivery and educational aspects of TV content while remaining highly entertaining? Previous work conceptualised ATV [1], identified pertinent dimensions of its design space [2, 3], and explored parts of this design space [4, 5]. This internship will build on an ongoing work that is investigating the design space of second screens for information delivery in textual format (Figure 2) and investigate the impact of various modes of delivering programme-related information (e.g., text,speech, avatars, holograms) on the viewers’ ability to retain the information, while maximising engagement, immersion, and minimising distraction. For this, a VR prototype will be created to simulate a TV viewing environment; in a lab setting, participants will be exposed to programmerelated information while watching nature documentaries and fill questionnaires related to recall, engagement, immersion, etc.
The findings will provide empirical evidence for the efficacy of information delivery mechanisms and motivate future work and further funding involving industry partners (e.g., the BBC R&D – the PI has ongoing collaboration and has published multiple papers with colleagues at the BBC – Dr Bruce Weir will directly be involved in advisory and co-supervision capacity) and future grants (e.g., EPSRC IAA). The findings will lead to a submission to a top-tier venue, e.g., ACM CHI (premier conf in HCI, ~3500 attendees per year, A*).