"Social Wormholes" is a CSCW2023 paper, leveraging AR for ubiquitous social computing. Collaborating with Snap, Inc. HCI Lab researchers, I drove the conceptualization of spatial-social communication, conducted qualitative and quantitative analysis, formulated themes and design implications, and authored original drafts and revisions. My spatial user experience passion contributed to the understanding of users' behavior patterns and perceptions when interacting with AR spatial artifacts.

Introduction

Family and friends often desire to stay connected with each other over distance. Our digital devices, such as smartphones and laptops thankfully let us call or message someone far away with the push of a button. But they do not support many indirect forms of co-presence that we often take for granted when sharing physical spaces. For instance, in person, we might notice a half-full cup of coffee left behind on the kitchen counter, signaling that our partner was in a hurry that morning to get to work.

To get there, many researchers have considered embedding computing capabilities into physical objects (tangible computing). Others envision technology as being pervasive and blending seamlessly into our spaces at scale (ambient and ubiquitous computing). These visions have led to things such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and smart environments. However, what if we apply this framing of ubiquitous computing then, to supporting social connection?

Our paper, Social Wormholes, seeks to examine this question. While current products and digital devices support social communication using a select number of dedicated objects, what if almost all objects in our environments could become mediums for interaction and exchange? Rather than devices taking our attention away from other people, what if we can share information with remote friends while continuing to actively engage in our daily activities? This work seeks to investigate this possible future, including its implications for feelings of social connection and how it could shape social behaviors. With this knowledge, we could design with the intention of not only having connected things but connected people.

What did we do?

We created Social Wormholes, an AR-glasses-based technology probe to explore what people's behaviors and preferences would be if they could freely connect different objects or spaces in the environment by attaching printed “wormhole” markers and sharing Ghosts and Sparkles in the context of their daily life with their friends. Sparkles appear as floating particles that signal that their partner has been near the corresponding wormhole. A Ghost consists of the image of an object in the user's field of view accompanied by a short five-second audio recording.

As an example, Partner A and B are connected through a pair of “wormholes” in their kitchens. From left to right: (a) B's AR glasses successfully detect the “wormhole” in his view and see light blue Sparkles being emitted from his shelf “wormhole” endpoint, which indicates that A had previously gazed at her corresponding connected endpoint. (b) B's gaze towards his “wormhole” triggers Sparkles to be sent to A. (c) B decides to send A a Ghost. B holds a mug up in front of him, and it is captured and transmitted to A's corresponding “wormhole”. (d) Later, A receives the Ghost from B at the “wormhole” endpoint on her fridge.

Here is a video demo of the system:

What did we learn?

We recruited 24 participants (12 pairs of friends) to try out Social Wormholes for two weeks. We found that:

Using Social Wormholes can strengthen the feelings of social connection between friends and reduce loneliness.
Common household objects and spaces can serve as connection endpoints. People often chose objects that held personal meaning, related to their hobbies, or revolved around their routine activities. They played with having both symmetrical (e.g., desk-to-desk) and asymmetrical connections (e.g. TV-to-fridge).
People found different uses for their connected artifacts. In some cases, it gave people the feeling of their remote partner being present in their space. Others found it useful as an additional channel for communication, or as a means to signal or track each other's activities.
While many people favored having many connected artifacts throughout their homes to enrich their communication experiences, others preferred to have only one or a few, favoring ease of use.

What could designers consider next?

We found that people adopt a mosaic of diverse patterns of behavior — ritualistic vs. serendipitous, and interpret their "wormhole" connections in three different ways — as proxies for people, activities, and spaces. Designers can integrate these insights and consider future design directions thoughtfully. Here are insights that designers of ubiquitous social computing experiences should keep in mind.

Be mindful of daily routines or support creative surprises.
We found two forms of behavioral patterns among users. A ritualistic behavioral pattern leads users to seek an efficient and stable means of sending and receiving messages. A serendipitous behavioral pattern motivates users to be experimental and creative about their process of connecting with others. Depending on the user's behavior pattern, future designs can align with their routines or can prompt users with creative ideas for connection points and mappings. Designs could feature a centralized channel of connection for ritualistic users as they want to consistently receive all of their social messages. Designs could support one-to-many, many-to-one, and many-to-many connections for serendipitous users for more creative opportunities.
Support users' relationships and activities.
There was a lot of variety in how the users assigned meaning to their “wormholes.” Sometimes, “wormholes” were viewed as representations of their friends. Other times, users interpreted them as proxies for places or activities. Thus, in a space with lots of variability, future systems can keep records of the relationships between the user and their friends, offering suggestions for artifacts and spaces that suit the nature of the relationship. Furthermore, future systems can identify common activities that both partners engage in and suggest activity-signifying artifacts and spaces as connection points.
Leverage spatial context to design co-presence.
Users preferred symmetrical mapping for a sense of co-presence with their partners. Future designs can recognize similarities between physical spaces and suggest symmetrical connections. Furthermore, the feeling of being together can be enhanced by mapping the spatial co-relationship and enabling a representation of the transmitted object placed in the environment with spatial mirroring.

We are excited about the fast-approaching future of social connection! Combining recent advancements in AR consumer products (e.g. Apple Vision Pro) and Generative AI, our vision may not be far from reality and we hope that our findings will help builders and designers realize it!

Summary of our study findings in terms of themes, insights, and design implications for future physically-distributed social connection systems.