Carpe diem: exploring user experience and intimacy in eye-based video conferencing

Technology-mediated communication including mobile phone and video conferencing on PC enable increasing bandwidth for everyday interactions between remote people. The effectiveness and social presence with traditional video conferences have been studied rather extensively. Our research arose from the motivation of exploring how intimacy and emotional engagement between people can be supported by alternative types of image-based communication tools. We constructed a video conferencing system with near-eye displays, where the users could only see one of each others' eyes. The goal was to explore how such unusual eye-based display of the other person would make people feel during conversations. We conducted an explorative user study in a laboratory context with five pairs of users to understand their experiences with this system. The results show that this kind of mediated communication between remote partners can cause a variety of experiences, such as "interesting", "surprising", "tranquil" or "pleasantly strange". Overall, the full-screen display of the eye clears off distractions from the discussion and thus can help make the discussion more intimate and focused on the moment. We envision that a novel system like this could become a communication tool for everyday life, including mobile situations where it's possible for two people to stop for a while to focus on one another.