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

Annie Gentès
Marie Cambone

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

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

18-06-2012 3 IADIS e-learning 2012

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?


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

• 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

“Student” interface in conference mode, VUE

Content

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

7

2- Design questions:
Exploring visual solutions for empathy

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.


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

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

Our team:
• Information and communication researchers
• Designers
• Developers

=> We explored how empathy is supported by a multi-modal
representation of self and others


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

23-02-2012 12

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



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.



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



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


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

17

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

“Teacher” interface in conference mode, VUE

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


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

“Student” interface in lecture, VUE

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

“Teacher” interface in lecture, VUE

5- Results and discussion

22

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

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



An omniscient viewpoint
-From the back, in an
omniscient view point
- The avatar in the
classroom: stimulating
maximum immersion




Representation of the
students
- It is not necessary to
represent everybody in
great detail.
- Representing the
classroom allows not to
feel alone




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.



A semiotic
construction used in
comics and photo-
novel
- Shot: view from the
rostrum to the students:
the upper zone
- Reverse-shots: lower
zone




All the teacher tools in
one screen
- Too complicated to
change the angle of
camera
- No blind spot




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.


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


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.


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: annie.gentes@telecom-paristch.fr
Marie Cambone: marie.cambone@gmail.com

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