Surfacing peers' workload and speed can reshape collaboration in VR, yet prior work often conflates social cues with environmental load. We isolate the social channel with TRACE-VR, which holds geometry, physics, rules, and timing constant while independently manipulating effort identifiability (traceable vs. anonymous) and peer effort (pace) (high vs. low). In a 2×2 within-subjects study $(n=32)$, each participant worked with nine scripted co-actors for three minutes, transporting 16 crates along a self-chosen path between fixed pickup/drop points; co-actors followed fixed pre-authored routes. We measured intrinsic motivation, social-evaluative load, NASA-TLX, and behavioral/process outcomes. Our findings show that identifiability and higher peer effort (pace) each modestly increased completion rates, with asymmetric effects suggesting partial substitution between accountability cues and normative pace. Perceived monitoring and temporal demand depended on their combination-identifiability raised monitoring at low pace and amplified time pressure at high pace-while composite TLX and finishers' times remained comparable across conditions. Thus, these cues chiefly determine who finishes rather than how fast finishers move. Motivation did not uniformly increase under higher pace. We frame identifiability and pace as partially substitutable levers for shaping social-evaluative experience and facet-level motivation, and outline tempo-aware, accountability-aware guidance for collaborative VR.

LED-VP is now mainstream in high-end studios, yet the capital cost of real-time volume stages renders training with this technology prohibitively expensive. Most film institutions simply cannot afford to build one LED-VP set for their students. This paper explores an alternative solution to the training of LED-VP by developing a virtual counterpart. However, significant challenges arise in simulating a virtual environment where students can operate in an LED-VP. Our study proposes the virtual environment of LED-VP, a virtual reality Collaborative Learning (VRCL) system. We developed an interface featuring visual symbols, namely MetaCineMoji , for film operation to facilitate smooth communication and learning processes in LED-VP workflows. MetaCineMoji demonstrates the feasibility of multi-person collaborative learning in a virtual filming studio, translating film set communication to visual symbols for lighting design, scene construction, and collaborative work with key stakeholders, e.g., directors, cinematographers, and gaffers. We explore the impact of the film-operation interfaces containing visual symbols on social interaction factors within the virtual studio. We conducted evaluations with 24 participants. Our findings show that our system equipped with the film-operation interface, enabled by visual symbols, significantly enhances social interaction among learners and results in significantly higher learning outcomes than systems without the interface. • MetaCineMoji VR system enables collaborative LED production training, significantly enhancing team communication and learning outcomes. • Visual symbols in MetaCineMoji streamline film set operations, facilitating efficient role-based interactions among directors, cinematographers, and gaffers. • Participants using MetaCineMoji reported improved workflow understanding, and strengthened team presence compared to non-symbolic systems.

In virtual reality (VR) education, especially in creative fields like film production, avatar design and narrative style extend beyond appearance and aesthetics. This study explores how the interaction between avatar gender, the dominant narrative actor's gender, and the learner's gender influences film production learning in VR, focusing on gaze dynamics and gender perspectives. Using a$2 \times 2 \times 2$experimental design, 48 participants operated avatars of different genders and interacted with male or female-dominant narratives. The results show that the consistency between the avatar and gender affects presence, and learners' control over the avatar is also influenced by gender matching. Learners using avatars of the opposite gender reported stronger control, suggesting gender incongruity prompted more focus on the avatar. Additionally, female participants with female avatars were more likely to adopt a “female gaze,” favoring soft lighting and emotional shots, while male participants with male avatars were more likely to adopt a “male gaze,” choosing dynamic shots and high contrast. When male participants used female avatars, they favored “female gaze,” while female participants with male avatars focused on “male gaze”. These findings advance our understanding of how avatar design and narrative style in VRbased education influence creativity and the cultivation of gender perspectives, and they offer insights for developing more inclusive and diverse VR teaching tools going forward.

Impulsive buying tendencies exist on Douyin, the most popular Chinese social media platform, primarily due to the users’ exposure to live sales events. This study delved into examining impulsive buying behaviour, specifically triggered by external stimuli, through the lens of the Stimulus-Organism-Response framework model. Thus, our study implemented a tailored Douyin client, namely Douyin X, that contains four interventions: Visualizing the wallet’s balances, enhancing payment friction, Prolonging the duration of purchase decision-making, and imposing browsing time limits and usage statistics. Our user study with 20 participants implies individuals’ impulsive buying due to external stimuli, combined with the proliferation of impulsive buying-promoting designs, which has led to the excessive prevalence of impulsive buying in live e-commerce. Our research offers a comprehensive framework that can effectively mitigate the likelihood of impulsive buying behaviours, specifically from a design-oriented standpoint.

We built a spatial hybrid system that combines a personal computer (PC) and virtual reality (VR) for visual sensemaking, addressing limitations in both environments. Although VR offers immense potential for interactive data visualization (e.g., large display space and spatial navigation), it can also present challenges such as imprecise interactions and user fatigue. At the same time, a PC offers precise and familiar interactions but has limited display space and interaction modality. Therefore, we iteratively designed a spatial hybrid system (PC+VR) to complement these two environments by enabling seamless switching between PC and VR environments. To evaluate the system's effectiveness and user experience, we compared it to using a single computing environment (i.e., PC-only and VR-only). Our study results (N=18) showed that spatial PC+VR could combine the benefits of both devices to outperform user preference for VR-only without a negative impact on performance from device switching overhead. Finally, we discussed future design implications.

With the rise of short-form video platforms and the increasing availability of data, we see the potential for people to share short-form videos embedded with data in situ (e.g., daily steps when running) to increase the credibility and expressiveness of their stories. However, creating and sharing such videos in situ is challenging since it involves multiple steps and skills (e.g., data visualization creation and video editing), especially for amateurs. By conducting a formative study (N=10) using three design probes, we collected the motivations and design requirements. We then built VisTellAR, a mobile AR authoring tool, to help amateur video creators embed data visualizations in short-form videos in situ. A two-day user study shows that participants (N=12) successfully created various videos with data visualizations in situ and they confirmed the ease of use and learning. AR pre-stage authoring was useful to assist people in setting up data visualizations in reality with more designs in camera movements and interaction with gestures and physical objects to storytelling.

In virtual reality (VR) education, particularly in creative fields like film production, the role of different virtual environments in shaping learning outcomes remains underexplored. This study investigates how three distinct environments-baseline, a dynamic beach setting, and a familiar office space-affect students' ability to learn film lighting techniques and whether team-based learning offers advantages over individual learning. We conducted a 3×2 factorial experiment with 36 participants to examine the effects of these environments on learning performance. Our results show for individual learners, the dynamic and potentially distracting beach environment increased frustration and effort but also heightened their sense of engagement and perceived performance. In contrast, team-based learning in familiar environments like the office significantly reduced frustration and fostered collaboration, leading to improved performance. Interestingly, team-based learning excelled in the baseline environment, whereas individual learners performed better in more challenging settings like the beach. These findings provide practical insights into optimizing virtual environments to enhance both individual and collaborative learning in VR education.

Lighting education is a foundational component of cinematography education. However, many art schools do not have expensive soundstages for traditional cinematography lessons. Migrating physical setups to virtual experiences is a potential solution driven by metaverse initiatives. Yet there is still a lack of knowledge on the design of a VR system for teaching cinematography. We first analyzed the educational needs for cinematography lighting education by conducting interviews with six cinematography professionals from academia and industry. Accordingly, we presented Art Mirror, a VR soundstage for teachers and students to emulate cinematography lighting in virtual scenarios. We evaluated Art Mirror from the aspects of usability, realism, presence, sense of agency, and collaboration. Sixteen participants were invited to take a cinematography lighting course and assess the design elements of Art Mirror. Our results demonstrate that Art Mirror is usable and useful for cinematography lighting education, which sheds light on the design of VR cinematography education.

Situated visualization blends data into the real world to fulfill individuals’ contextual information needs. However, interacting with situated visualization in public environments faces challenges posed by users’ acceptance and contextual constraints. To explore appropriate interaction design, we first conduct a formative study to identify users’ needs for data and interaction. Informed by the findings, we summarize appropriate interaction modalities with eye-based, hand-based and spatially-aware object interaction for situated visualization in public environments. Then, through an iterative design process with six users, we explore and implement interactive techniques for activating and analyzing with situated visualization. To assess the effectiveness and acceptance of these interactions, we integrate them into an AR prototype and conduct a within-subjects study in public scenarios using conventional hand-only interactions as the baseline. The results show that participants preferred our prototype over the baseline, attributing their preference to the interactions being more acceptable, flexible, and practical in public.

The global aging trend compels older adults to navigate the evolving digital landscape, presenting a substantial challenge in mastering smartphone applications. While Augmented Reality (AR) holds promise for enhancing learning and user experience, its role in aiding older adults’ smartphone app exploration remains insufficiently explored. Therefore, we conducted a two-phase study: (1) a workshop with 18 older adults to identify app exploration challenges and potential AR interventions, and (2) tech-probe participatory design sessions with 15 participants to co-create AR support tools. Our research highlights AR’s effectiveness in reducing physical and cognitive strain among older adults during app exploration, especially during multi-app usage and the trial-and-error learning process. We also examined their interactional experiences with AR, yielding design considerations on tailoring AR tools for smartphone app exploration. Ultimately, our study unveils the prospective landscape of AR in supporting the older demographic, both presently and in future scenarios.

In film education, high expenses and limited space significantly challenge teaching synchronized sound recording (SSR). Traditional methods, which emphasize theory with limited practical experience, often fail to bridge the gap between theoretical understanding and practical application. As such, we introduce MetaEcho, an educational virtual reality leveraging the presence theory for teaching SSR. MetaEcho provides realistic simulations of various recording equipment and facilitates communication between learners and instructors, offering an immersive learning experience that closely mirrors actual practices. An evaluation with 24 students demonstrated that MetaEcho surpasses the traditional method in presence, collaboration, usability, realism, comprehensibility, and creativity. Three experts also commented on the benefits of MetaEcho and the opportunities for promoting SSR education in the metaverse era.

With the commercialization of virtual/augmented reality (VR/AR) devices, there is an increasing interest in combining immersive and non-immersive devices (e.g., desktop computers) for asymmetric collaborations. While such asymmetric settings have been examined in social platforms, significant questions around layout dimensionality in data-driven decision-making remain underexplored. A crucial inquiry arises: although presenting a consistent 3D virtual world on both immersive and non-immersive platforms has been a common practice in social applications, does the same guideline apply to lay out data? Or should data placement be optimized locally according to each device's display capacity? This study aims to provide empirical insights into the user experience of asymmetric collaboration in data-driven decision-making. We tested practical dimensionality combinations between PC and VR, resulting in three conditions: PC2D+VR2D, PC2D+VR3D, and PC3D+VR3D. The results revealed a preference for PC2D+VR3D, and PC2D+VR2D led to the quickest task completion. Our investigation facilitates an in-depth discussion of the trade-offs associated with different layout dimensionalities in asymmetric collaborations.

The high cost and limited availability of soundstages for cinematography lighting education pose significant challenges for art institutions. Traditional teaching methods, combining basic lighting equipment operation with slide lectures, often yield unsatisfactory results, hindering students' mastery of cinematography lighting techniques. Therefore, we propose Metashadow, a virtual reality (VR) cinematography lighting education system demonstrating the feasibility of learning in a virtual soundstage. Based on the presence theory, Metashadow features high-fidelity lighting devices that enable users to adjust multiple parameters, providing a quantifiable learning approach. We evaluated Metashadow with 24 participants and found that it provides better learning outcomes than traditional teaching methods regarding presence, collaboration, usability, realism, creativity, and flexibility. Six experts also praised the Metashadow's expressiveness and its learning outcomes. Our study demonstrates the potential of VR technology to enhance cinematography lighting education while imposing a smaller cost burden and space requirement.

Data storytelling explores how to communicate data insights to the general public engagingly and effectively. It combines the power of data visualizations and storytelling techniques and is popular in various media such as newspapers, interactive websites, and videos. Recently, virtual reality has brought new opportunities to enhance data storytelling with an incomparable sense of immersion. However, there exists a limited understanding of data stories in virtual reality (VR) as they are still in the early stage. In this paper, we investigated the idea of VR data videos by drawing inspiration from popular 3D data videos and studying how to transfer them from screens to VR. We systematically analyzed 100 highly-watched 3D data videos from Youtube and Tiktok channels to derive their design space. We then conducted a user study with 12 participants to explore the effects of four design factors on user experience, including varying camera angles, showing chart overview, animation, and using anchors. Specifically, participants watched 3D data videos in desktop and VR environments. We collected and analyzed their quantitative and qualitative feedback regarding the story’s understandability, memorability, engagement, and emotional effects. Results suggested that data videos in VR were significantly more appreciated than on desktops. We concluded with design implications for future applications and research on VR data videos.

This paper provided empirical knowledge of the user experience for using collaborative visualization in a distributed asymmetrical setting through controlled user studies. With the ability to access various computing devices, such as Virtual Reality (VR) head-mounted displays, scenarios emerge when collaborators have to or prefer to use different computing environments in different places. However, we still lack an understanding of using VR in an asymmetric setting for collaborative visualization. To get an initial understanding and better inform the designs for asymmetric systems, we first conducted a formative study with 12 pairs of participants. All participants collaborated in asymmetric (PC-VR) and symmetric settings (PC-PC and VR-VR). We then improved our asymmetric design based on the key findings and observations from the first study. Another ten pairs of participants collaborated with enhanced PC-VR and PC-PC conditions in a follow-up study. We found that a well-designed asymmetric collaboration system could be as effective as a symmetric system. Surprisingly, participants using PC perceived less mental demand and effort in the asymmetric setting (PC-VR) compared to the symmetric setting (PC-PC). We provided fine-grained discussions about the trade-offs between different collaboration settings.

This paper presents a design space of interaction techniques to engage with visualizations that are printed on paper and augmented through Augmented Reality. Paper sheets are widely used to deploy visualizations and provide a rich set of tangible affordances for interactions, such as touch, folding, tilting, or stacking. At the same time, augmented reality can dynamically update visualization content to provide commands such as pan, zoom, filter, or detail on demand. This paper is the first to provide a structured approach to mapping possible actions with the paper to interaction commands. This design space and the findings of a controlled user study have implications for future designs of augmented reality systems involving paper sheets and visualizations. Through workshops ( N=20) and ideation, we identified 81 interactions that we classify in three dimensions: 1) commands that can be supported by an interaction, 2) the specific parameters provided by an (inter)action with paper, and 3) the number of paper sheets involved in an interaction. We tested user preference and viability of 11 of these interactions with a prototype implementation in a controlled study ( N=12, HoloLens 2) and found that most of the interactions are intuitive and engaging to use. We summarized interactions (e.g., tilt to pan) that have strong affordance to complement "point" for data exploration, physical limitations and properties of paper as a medium, cases requiring redundancy and shortcuts, and other implications for design.

Data visualizations are created and shared on the web at an unprecedented speed, raising new needs and questions for processing and analyzing visualizations after they have been generated and digitized. However, existing formalisms focus on operating on a single visualization instead of multiple visualizations, making it challenging to perform analysis tasks such as sorting and clustering visualizations. Through a systematic analysis of previous work, we abstract visualization-related tasks into mathematical operators such as union and propose a design space of visualization operations. We realize the design by developing ComputableViz, a library that supports operations on multiple visualization specifications. To demonstrate its usefulness and extensibility, we present multiple usage scenarios concerning processing and analyzing visualization, such as generating visualization embeddings and automatically making visualizations accessible. We conclude by discussing research opportunities and challenges for managing and exploiting the massive visualizations on the web.

We contribute MobileVisFixer, a new method to make visualizations more mobile-friendly. Although mobile devices have become the primary means of accessing information on the web, many existing visualizations are not optimized for small screens and can lead to a frustrating user experience. Currently, practitioners and researchers have to engage in a tedious and time-consuming process to ensure that their designs scale to screens of different sizes, and existing toolkits and libraries provide little support in diagnosing and repairing issues. To address this challenge, MobileVisFixer automates a mobile-friendly visualization re-design process with a novel reinforcement learning framework. To inform the design of MobileVisFixer, we first collected and analyzed SVG-based visualizations on the web, and identified five common mobile-friendly issues. MobileVisFixer addresses four of these issues on single-view Cartesian visualizations with linear or discrete scales by a Markov Decision Process model that is both generalizable across various visualizations and fully explainable. MobileVisFixer deconstructs charts into declarative formats, and uses a greedy heuristic based on Policy Gradient methods to find solutions to this difficult, multi-criteria optimization problem in reasonable time. In addition, MobileVisFixer can be easily extended with the incorporation of optimization algorithms for data visualizations. Quantitative evaluation on two real-world datasets demonstrates the effectiveness and generalizability of our method.

This paper presents an authoring environment for augmenting static visualizations with virtual content in augmented reality.Augmenting static visualizations can leverage the best of both physical and digital worlds, but its creation currently involves different tools and devices, without any means to explicitly design and debug both static and virtual content simultaneously. To address these issues, we design an environment that seamlessly integrates all steps of a design and deployment workflow through its main features: i) an extension to Vega, ii) a preview, and iii) debug hints that facilitate valid combinations of static and augmented content. We inform our design through a design space with four ways to augment static visualizations. We demonstrate the expressiveness of our tool through examples, including books, posters, projections, wall-sized visualizations. A user study shows high user satisfaction of our environment and confirms that participants can create augmented visualizations in an average of 4.63 minutes.