We designed a videochat experience where one participant can experience a remote environment from a 360° camera. This allows the remote user to view and explore the environment without necessitating interaction from the local participant. We designed and conducted an observational study to understand the experience, and the challenges that people might encounter. In a study with 32 participants (16 pairs), we found that remote participants could actively participate in the experience with the environment in ways that are not possible with current mobile video chat. However, we also found that participants had challenges in communicating location and orientation information because many of common communication resources we rely on in collocated chat are not available. Based on these findings, we discuss how future mobile video chat systems need to balance immersion with interaction ease.

360° videos are made using omnidirectional cameras that capture a sphere around the camera. Viewers get an immersive experience by freely changing their field of view around the sphere. The problem is that current interfaces are designed for a single user, and we do not know what challenges groups of people will have when viewing these videos together. We report on the findings of a study where 16 pairs of participants watched 360° videos together in a "guided tour" scenario. Our findings indicate that while participants enjoyed the ability to view the scene independently, this caused challenges establishing joint references, leading to breakdowns in conversation. We conclude by discussing how gaze awareness widgets and gesturing mechanisms may support smoother collaborative interaction around collaborative viewing of 360° videos.

Recent mobile technology has provided new opportunities for creating remote assistance systems. However, mobile support systems present a particular challenge: both the camera and display are held by the user, leading to shaky video. When pointing or drawing annotations, this means that the desired target often moves, causing the gesture to lose its intended meaning. To address this problem, we investigate annotation stabilization techniques, which allow annotations to stick to their intended location. We studied two annotation systems, using three different forms of annotations, with both tablets and head-mounted displays. Our analysis suggests that stabilized annotations and head-mounted displays are only beneficial in certain situations. However, the simplest approach of automatically freezing video while drawing annotations was surprisingly effective in facilitating the completion of remote assistance tasks.