Experiences in designing HCI studies for real-time interaction across distributed crowds and co-located participants

Abstract

This paper is a post-hoc reflective case study from the point of view of the research investigators. The authors share the experience of designing and deploying four studies that involve real-time interaction between distributed crowds and co-located participants. We first recount the challenges that these uncommon, yet increasingly necessary, HCI research contexts afford. We then present the learning outcomes from 1) the ‘designing’, 2) the setting up, 3) the real-time dynamics and 4) the interaction between distributed and colocated participants. From this we deduce the impact for the four stakeholders in these contexts 1) the distributed crowd, 2) the co-located participants, 3) the system owners and 4) the researchers. This metaresearch approach is motivated by our struggle to find more ‘Researcher-experience’ cases during the early stages of the studies. This contribution in experience sharing is intended to help HCI researchers who are planning studies in this field.