The Real World: Video Conferencing

Lon Barfield

Two decades ago I used to watch `Thunderbirds': a science-fiction puppet show for children. They had video conferencing. The picture on the wall of Scot had eyes that would suddenly light up and then the picture would become a video screen allowing him to video conference with his commander.

Two weeks ago, in the (rather small) meeting room of a client, I found myself taking part in that science-fiction world of video conferencing. I watched them setting up the equipment as the `real' people drifted in (new technology; the `real people', present in the flesh, and the `video people', present on the screen). Ten real people were expected and video people in Hong Kong and America. Part of the equipment was a solid tripod with a gun-turret like video camera in it. It was possible to remotely steer and zoom it and then to record the parameters as a preset. We spent half an hour setting up useful presets while the video person in Hong Kong was busy with his cables. Preset one was the chairperson in close-up, two was the presentation screen and so on. When we were done we skipped from to another while the watching real people `ohhhhed' and `ahhhed' like spectators at a fireworks show.

After more setting up and contacting the parties in America all ten of us real people watched the pictures coming in from Hong Kong: they showed a very tired Chinese guy trying to sort his way through a spaghetti of cables so that he would be able to see us. Unlike Scots' eyes, his didn't light up, they just looked sunken and tired. While we were waiting we tried to impress the newcomers in the room by skipping through the presets on the remote-controlled video camera. For some reason most of them now seemed to include large amounts of the ceiling. Checking the camera revealed why; in an enthusiastic attempt to clear extra space in the room one of the attendees had shifted it out of the way and leant it against the wall in the corner!

Progress was slow, Hong Kong still couldn't see us and America was only present on audio. We decided to go ahead without video, and just use the phone links. However we rapidly became aware of the ragged breathing of all the remote attendees. `Hello Guys' shouted our chairperson, `We can hear you breathing, can you press the mute buttons or something until you actually have a question to ask?' A chorus of `Yeah's' came back followed by a wave of tinny, easy-listening music. If it wasn't enough to be spread across the world at ungodly hours, we now had to listen to the `on-hold' music of one of the many telephone systems involved! `Guys, someone's playing music. Can we stop that?', `Why? Don't you like it?' came the reply.

The rest of the presentation went well, our chairperson mediated skillfully between the real people and the video (actually now audio) people. Eventually some of us suggested the idea of a break in the proceedings, and after a quick discussion we all piled out of the crowded room for coffee and a leg-stretch. As we are wandering down the corridor someone shouts `What about the others?' Of course; they wouldn't have heard the discussion, they would only know that it had all gone quiet at the other end. One of us ran back in to shout an explanation to them.

All in all it was a very educational experience, and not just for the content of the course being given. A number of the problems seemed to stem from the fact that there were two groups of people involved, one of which was disadvantaged. One joking suggestion was that in order to make it all run more smoothly everyone should be equal and all the real people should go into adjacent rooms and also work through video link-ups!

In fact being present at such a mixed video conference as one of the video people must give you a very good idea of what it is like to be physically or mentally disadvantaged in ordinary social/interactive situations where the majority are not disadvantaged. You struggle to take part, you are often forgotten and you have to depend heavily on having a representative to assist you in the group of non-disadvantaged people.

The experience should be obligatory for anyone calling themselves a user interface designer.

Lon Barfield (lon@design.nl) is a usability expert and lecturer working at General Design Internet Solutions. He is author of `The User Interface, Concepts and Design' (Addison-Wesley) and also writes for "Interfaces" (the user interface magazine of the British HCI Group). He is currently working on a book about multimedia and web design.

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Vol.30 No.4, October 1998
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