Social Amelioration of Bridged Communication Delay

William D. Tucker

University of Cape Town

South Africa

ECSCW’03 Doctoral Colloquium

South African Research Context

Internet users 6.49 43.03

PCs 7.26 42.35

Phone/cell 37.35 139.24

Literacy 54 99

Per 100 people

Sources:unstats.un.org/unsd/databases.htmwww.projectliteracy.org.zaguesstimate

TTS

ASR

Deaf Telephony Bridging

Deaf Users Hearing Users

SophisticatedIT-literate

UnsophisticatedIT-illiterate

Sign language grammar and work usage can be confusing to non-Deaf users:

<noxolo> me come see u tonight

Speech recognition can produce garbage.

<noxolo> start again

<andile> And K. [OK]

<noxolo> what k?

ConversationRepair

Research Question

• How do we deal with all these delays in bridged communications?• What factors contribute to overcoming poor Quality of Service,

especially of delay?• How can those factors be incorporated into software systems?• How can we measure the efficacy of such systems?• Can bridging systems become viable in the workplace?

Main Theoretical Concept

• Social dynamics of using a semi-synchronous messaging system can overcome delays

• Instant messaging usage and etiquette rubberizes toleration of delay in communication volley

• In bridged situations, the social need for connectivity engenders tolerance, e.g. Deaf User can now get “connected”

• However, toleration of delay taxes the “sophisticated” user more, hence the need to pull in all users into the social dynamics of the communication

Instant Messaging and Chat

• Social dynamics allow exchange to be temporarily or even extensively interrupted

• IM appears synchronous when connectivity is good and participants are active

• More participants provide a social milieu that allows participants to drop in and out

• Delays tolerated in IM/chat conversation exchange

Overall Research Strategy

Instant Messaging in literature

Deaf Telephonytrials

Rural telehealthtrials

• Study social and temporal dynamics in Instant Messaging literature

• Build & test experimental bridged scenarios where delay and QoS are extremely poor

Rural Telehealth• Scheduling issues• IT-literacy issues: typing,

everyday use of PC

• Intermittent power• Bandwidth• Language barriers

Methodology-Qualitative

• Action Research vs Participatory Design– Community members do not yet know what IT can

do for them

– Education is a part of the process

– Researcher & user reflection

• Our take on Action Research– Human Access Point (HAP) jump-starts the process

– Iterative cycles within cycles: HAP & community

– Learn how to adapt the software to social dynamics

– Document process in revision control of software

Methodology-Quantitative

• Base approach on ITU measures – P.800, P.920 objective/subjective

– Physical network propagation metrics

– Questionnaires measure users’ tolerance of delay• Likert scale

• How much did you like . . . ?

• Relate objective to subjective data– QoS metrics

– Message exchange dynamics

– SoftBridge overhead

– Software feature usage

ObjectiveMeasures

SubjectiveMeasures

SophisticatedIT-literateUsers

UnsophisticatedIT-illiterateUsers

within

within

between

between

Deaf Telephony

Rural Telehealth

between

between

Data Analysis

Status of Ongoing Activities

Deaf Telephony• PSTN breakout• Cellphones & PDAs• Literate user trials on campus

with SoftBridge• Move user trials to Bastion

Centre for the Deaf (2 PCs)• Proposal for “Internet literacy”

training facility (20 PCs)

Rural Telehealth• Visited 2 sites: Tsilitwa

and Tombo• Basic VoIP and webcam

over WiFi• Workshops to identify

clinical applications• Proposal to provide VSAT

connectivity

Contact Details and SponsorsWilliam D. Tucker (Bill)University of Cape TownSouth Africawww.cs.uct.ac.za/~btuckerbtucker@cs.uct.ac.za

University of the Western Cape

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