ShineUS: Exploring Preferences in Public Discussion Dan Chalmers, Paul Calcraft, Ciaran Fisher, Luke Whiting, Jon Rimmer, Ian Wakeman Informatics, University of Sussex, Brighton, U.K. Email: D.Chalmers@sussex.ac.uk Abstract—We propose to demonstrate a system for discussing posters. The system bridges the physical and virtual, using QR codes to tag posters and being available through mobile devices, the web and a projection or large screen view. Control over visibility of interactions is provided, allowing users to control their exposure and consider privacy concerns while making comments on a per-post basis. The use of identity, integration with Facebook and Twitter, ability to reply and ongoing availability of the system after the conference all allow it to take on a social aspect. The deployment will contribute to our research by providing further data on how such systems, in particular their visibility controls, are used. I. I NTRODUCTION We have a system, “ShineUS”, for supporting discussion of physical artefacts, which explores how public people want to be about what they say. This system has benefited from past experience in public deployments around trust in markets [1], [2]. The mediation of discussion via the virtual can have several effects: • It provides a natural delay in which thoughts can be framed, widening the circle of discussion to those less confident about face to face interaction. At the same time this delay and the use of text inhibits immediate and interactive clarification, so participants may need to take more care in articulating their thoughts to keep a conversation productive, although an exchange which clarifies thoughts can be a useful process for poster, questioner and viewers alike. • It provides a level of anonymity which allows people to say things they might not say face to face. • It provides a level of permanence and visibility to a discussion which may affect the comfort of the less confident, depending on how busy the physical space is – allowing a less confident voice to be heard but exposing the discussion more widely than a one-to-one conversation. • The asynchrony of the discussion may lead to interac- tions which would otherwise have been missed, due to time and space limits of the physical experience. The obvious use of this in a conference setting would be to discuss other demos and/or posters. Particular attention has been given to exposure and control over engagement: each comment made provides control over This work was supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, grant EP/F064330/1 how the user wishes to share it, so that they can manipulate how visible they wish to be with each one - will it appear on the projection, on Facebook, on Twitter? Will it be anonymous? Does the user want to walk away before their words appear? These controls relate to privacy, but are more focused on visibility and control over how the system is engaged with – rather than access to personal data. This work is being undertaken within a project which investigates how to use pervasive computing technologies to support people in their interactions with other people, including those that are shy or less confident in presenting themselves in the current situation. In particular we are interested in information models and implementations that manage personal and context data to control presentation of self and mediate interactions, particularly in performative settings; and better understand the sense of performance anxiety and shyness arising from the connectivity and the more immediate forms of interaction provided by pervasive computing. The research contribution of this application is in focusing on ensuring a staging period in public pronounce- ments, allowing users to prepare themselves for display following the work of Goffman [3]. The balance of controls in order to achieve the most suitable presentation of self for a given situation is very dynamic, depending of social situation and physical context. This work explores a balance between sophistication of controls and usability and different aspects of exposure of a discussion to wider engagement, while still providing the staging and removal that computer mediated communication affords the shy, or otherwise less confident, user. II. SYSTEM IN USE The system has a number of components: 1) A server, hosted at the University of Sussex, which provides web pages and stores comments and user identities. 2) QR codes, which reflect the server pages for the various tagged objects at the event 3) A projector (or other public display), driven from a computer at the event, using a connection to the server to provide a very public visualisation of the live comments. 4) Users’ mobile devices, acting as code readers, com- ment input and comment reading devices. This pro- vides a more personal visualisation of comments. PerCom Demos 2012, Lugano (20 March 2012) 978-1-4244-9529-0/12/$31.00 ©2012 IEEE 513