In multilingual conferences, translation support should not compromise non‑verbal cues or social interaction. Prior work on eXtended Reality (XR) subtitles aids comprehension but rarely examines translation latency. We conducted a VR-simulated conference, testing latencies of 0, 1.5, 3, 4.5, and 6 seconds to measure overall comprehension and attribution of verbal and non‑verbal information. Results showed that latencies beyond 3 seconds significantly increased subjective difficulty and affected accuracy, while shorter latencies showed no significant effects. Furthermore, participants noted that very low delay drew attention to subtitles, reducing opportunities to observe the speaker. Guided by these insights, we designed and evaluated four VR subtitle interfaces, including one traditional and three novel designs. Across delay conditions, Merged Subtitles improved opportunities to observe the speaker and resulted in better emotion attribution and user experience than other designs. We also proposed design guidelines for XR subtitle interfaces based on different levels of translation latency.

The recent emergence and popularity of consumer-grade augmented reality (AR) glasses from major technology companies highlight their potential to become the next daily computing platform. A dominant design trend in this context is the integration of a front-facing camera to deliver a first-person perspective. While this approach is intuitive, there is limited evidence that it is optimal (or sufficient) for supporting users in daily tasks. This paper explores a more effective camera interaction technique for AR glasses, which we term "FlexiCamAR". This novel method aims to enhance both efficiency and the range of applications for AR glasses by offering flexible and comfortable secondary camera viewpoints. To investigate the applicability and usability of this approach, we developed a ring camera prototype that can be attached to users’ fingers. We then conducted a user study with 12 participants, comparing FlexiCamAR against the baseline, a traditional front-facing AR camera setup, across two common tasks: taking photos and scanning QR codes. Our findings show that FlexiCamAR significantly reduces physical load. We also explore potential scenarios where the additional viewpoint afforded by FlexiCamAR proves valuable, such as capturing low-angle perspectives or navigating confined spaces. Participant feedback further suggests strong potential for additional applications, including selfie taking, video conferencing, and object scanning. Overall, FlexiCamAR presents a novel interaction approach that can serve as a powerful supplement or alternative to the first-person perspective, significantly improving the adaptability of AR glasses for everyday use.

The Video See-Through (VST) technology in Extended Reality Head-Mounted Displays (XR HMDs) allows users to perceive the real-world environment while viewing seamlessly integrated virtual content in passthrough mode. This technology has demonstrated significant potential across domains such as industry, healthcare, and intelligent driving. However, the camera of current VST technologies often struggles with visual fidelity, especially in low-light environments. To address this challenge, we introduce NoctuaXR, a lightweight, low-cost, environment-aware enhancement that dynamically adjusts the pixel-level brightness and saturation of the VST view in real time based on ambient light conditions, significantly improving visual quality in low-light scenarios. In a 10 lx environment, which is a very dim level of light, our tests show that NoctuaXR improves the color accuracy of the Baseline by 68.59% and outperforms the current leading, professional XR HMD, the Varjo XR-4 Focal Edition, by 64.26%. Furthermore, a comprehensive evaluation, including a perceptual quality evaluation and a daily task performance evaluation, confirms NoctuaXR's effectiveness. Our method provides users with a significantly improved visual experience, elevating their task efficiency to a level comparable to the Varjo XR-4. We also present compelling real-world use cases-from in-flight entertainment to navigating a dark room without disturbing others-that highlight NoctuaXR's tangible value in making XR technology safer, more convenient, and truly practical for daily life.

The advent of web-based interactive technologies has opened up new possibilities for virtual gatherings in 3D environments. Live-streaming, in particular, has gained increasing attention due to its effectiveness in engaging a large number of users in collective online activities. With an emphasis on audience participation, live-streaming shares common characteristics of the outlook of the metaverse and is driving new waves of interaction in virtual gatherings, such as engaging users through crowdsourcing control. However, this type of social interaction has not been examined in the Asian context, and it lacks systematic investigation of user experience with different crowdsourcing control methods. In this paper, we present a novel crowdsourcing control method based on DanMu, the subtitle system of Bilibili, one of the most successful and prevalent live-streaming platforms in Asia. We organized virtual gatherings by live-streaming a Minecraft virtual campus and examined the use of DanMu for crowdsourcing control. Our first study investigated the influence of three crowdsourcing control methods (First Come First Served, Vote, and Super Command) on collective navigation task efficiency and user experience. These influences were further discussed with user activeness and group sizes in a follow-up study. The results showed that Super Command, a representative mode on top of the democratic voting mechanism, offers better user experiences and social richness in large groups. Participants also rated its usability higher in small groups. Besides, virtual gathering in small groups allows greater pragmatic quality, usability, and a sense of agency than in large groups. Our work provides design guidelines for developers and HCI practitioners to develop crowdsourcing control methods and improve novel virtual gathering experiences in virtual worlds and the future metaverse.

We present EdgeSelect, a linear target selection interaction technique that utilizes a small portion of the smartwatch display, explicitly designed to mitigate the ‘fat finger’ and screen occlusion problems, two of the most common and well-known challenges when interacting with small displays. To design our technique, we first conducted a user study to answer which segments of the smartwatch display have the least screen occlusion while users are interacting with it. We use results from the first experiment to introduce EdgeSelect, a three-layer non-linear interaction technique, which can be used to interact with multiple co-adjacent graphs on the smartwatch by using a region that is the least prone to finger occlusion. In a second experiment, we explore the density limits of the targets possible with EdgeSelect. Finally, we demonstrate the generalizability of EdgeSelect to interact with various types of content.