Support for Distributed Pair Programming in the Transparent Video Facetop

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Support for Distributed Pair Programming in
the Transparent Video Facetop

• David Stotts
• Jason Smith, Karl Gyllstrom, Dorian Miller
• Dept. of Computer Science
• Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• October 2004

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Interesting Collaborative Systems

• Bush Memex (45)
• Great grandfater of the Web
• Video Window (BellCore, 90)
• Collaborative coffee lounge
• Clearboard (Ishi, 94)
• Expensive custom hardware
• HyperMirror

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Extreme Programming (XP)

• Kent Beck, late 90s
• One Agile software development processes
• change happens deal with it
• Small teams (2 to 10 people)
• Modest sized projects

If we know something is a good idea, lets take
it to the extreme
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XP Practices

• Test-first development
• Simple design (add no function before its time)
• Re-factoring
• User/client on-site
• Planning game
• 100 regression tests
• run end of each day
• No overtime

best known for Pair programming
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Pair Programing has known benefits
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Pair Programming Benefits

• Increased productivity
• 15 increase in person-hours
• 45 reduction in clock hours
• Fewer errors
• Better program structure
• Increased engineer satisfaction
• Increased client satisfaction (for full XP)

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Teleworking Boom

• Half of American information workers work
  offsite at least part of the time

Companies are looking at hot bunking as a way
of controlling real estate costs and increasing
productivity of the plant they are paying
for National area of technical emphasis
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Current Studies

• COTS software how far can we get?
• Screen sharing ( pcAnywhere, VNC )
• Audio/text exchange ( Yahoo messenger )
• No video ( bandwidth concerns )
• Broadband speed or better
• Joint work with Laurie Williams, Ed Geringer at
  NCSU

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Distributed Pair Programming

• Assume you must develop across the wire
• If we use synchronous collaboration
• If we organize as pairs
• Can we effectively develop good software?
• Will collocated PP benefits still hold?
• Can we apply all XP practices ?
• Should we?

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Anecdotal Observation

• A student told me he had participated in 2 PP
  experiments one co-located, one distributed
• He said he was more efficient in dPP that he and
  his partner did more chit-chatting in
  co-located
• Not sure if this is social, or technical
• Or not real
• An industry engineer confirmed a similar
  phenomenon

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Video-Enhanced Environment

• In all studies, dPP programmers say
• we need a whiteboard
• we miss facial expressions
• we cant point at what we are sharing
• We wanted to construct a video-enhanced dPP
  environment to address these issues

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2002 Chicago Workshop

• We ran dPP/dXP workshop in Chicago
• 40 attended many had tried some form of dPP
• Video was
• Not used
• but not disproved
• Video was perceived to have benefits
• When made LARGE
• Like Bellcore VideoWindow

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The Basic Facetop

• Transparency combined with user self-view
• Uniquely integrates video conferencing with
  desktop information and applications
• Works as a single-use PC interface
• Works as dual-user collaboration support
• Most effective in projected context

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Some Good Press

• Technology Research News
• ACM tech Notes
• Gizmodo
• Gadgetopia
• Slash Dot
• Wired

Blogs UNC Endeavors UR Alumni Review
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Geek Magazine!!

• Look for it in early September

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Related work

• Englebart 60s collaboration on text
• Clearboard 90s expensive custom hardware
• Video Mirrors combined video spaces
• Hand Tracking, gestures lots
• Augmented reality lots
• Columbia Feiner blueprints
• Office of the Future Fuchs

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Dual-head Collaborative FaceTop
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No Registration Issues

• No registration worries
• Object tracking (fingertip) allows camera motion
• User self-registers 30 fps
• For natural pointing camera must be generally in
  front of user and oriented face-on

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Directions

• User studies
• Controlled dPP studies in fall
• Medical imaging group
• Architects, blueprints
• Emergency room use
• Enabling technology
• Hearing-impaired can participate in dPP, other
  sync. remote collaborations

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Directions

• Windows version (Mac only for now)
• Faster tracking
• 3person versions
• Better video compositing foggy
• Voice activations
• 3D version for dome display

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All windows can be resized / re-opaqued /
overlayed
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Development

• Funding for 1 student so we did not do pair
  programming for most of the development
• Did pair for first 3 sessions for overall system
  design and for initial exploration of some
  candidate legacy codes and an initial system.
• Mac OS X is the platform ( openGL )
• Longhorn will enable Windows version, if not
  earlier

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System Architecture
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Early evaluations

• Had pairs that had done non-video dPP try Facetop
  for dPP
• Results very encouraging no team found the
  system objectionable
• All found it preferable to non-video
• All found the pointing to be natural and effective

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Other evaluations

• Had two people with hearing-impairments try it
• Asked them to attempt signing and lip reading via
  Facetop to discuss document on the screen
• No problems signing (18 fps on 100mb switched
  dept ethernet)
• Lip reading not possible yet (more fps)
• Tic-Tac-Toe collaborative chess coming

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But serendipity

• Discussing PhD work with Jason
• Projected on the board in my office
• Happened to have just installed a Firewire cam
• Happened to have reversed the image horizontally

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Environment Schematic
 
Right-hand user, can reach from seat, write on
projected digital whiteboard
Shared PC projection
projector
keyboard, etc.
Partner / whiteboard
projection
programmer
camera
projector
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Alternatives
 
Partner projection
Shared PC projection
Less useful for whiteboard , Perhaps more
effective with multi-screen unified wide display
keyboard, etc.
camera
programmer
projector
projector
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90º Projector Setup
Daily use 2 PCs switched between 2 projectors and
a monitor
dPP use Both projectors at once, one for
communication, one for shared PC desktop
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Starts as normal app window
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Resized by control-dragging up and down over the
window
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Move window with the mouse
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Opaqueness adjusted by alt-dragging up and down
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Network settings pane used to start 2-head
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Second window opens after connection
Remote local
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Command-drag window rotates
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Double clicking a window makes it full screen
This is both full screen
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Resolution and frames per second can be adjusted
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dPP teams do as well as collocated
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dPP teams do as well as collocated
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dPP teams do as well as collocated
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dPP teams do as well as collocated
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PP teams better communication
How was the communication with your team?
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PP teams better cooperation
How was the cooperation among team members
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End of Presentation
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Findings

• dPP software development over the wire is
• feasible,
• effective,
• affordable (COTS),
• pleasant for the participants
• Small-scale distributed development is better
  done as pairs (synchronous) than as individuals
  who integrate
• Synchronous pairing engenders better teamwork and
  communications for remote work

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Distance Matters

• Distance matters is a truism among
  collaborative systems researchers ( Olson
  Olson )
• Studies of graduate programmers (136, 16, 12, 2)
• Paired, non-paired, co-located, distributed

We are finding that distance doesnt always
matter doesnt matter as much as thought
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Findings

• Joint studies with Laurie Williams, Ed Gehringer
  at NC State
• dPP programs were equal in quality to those of
  co-located pairs ( also distributed non-paired
  teams )
• Distributed pairs maintain many of the advantages
  of collocated pairs ( fewer errors, etc. )
• Distributed pairs maintain many of the pair
  effects ( pair pressure, pair learning, two
  brains ) oserved in co-located PP

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Environment Schematic
 
Right-hand user, can reach from seat, write on
projected digital whiteboard
Shared PC projection
projector
keyboard, etc.
Partner / whiteboard
projection
programmer
camera
projector
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Alternatives
 
Partner projection
Shared PC projection
Less useful for whiteboard , Perhaps more
effective with multi-screen unified wide display
keyboard, etc.
camera
programmer
projector
projector
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Solving the Pointing Problem
   
The Transparent Video FaceTop
Single-user track finger, drive mouse, self-image
provides cues not found in other UIs
Collaborative put two people on one shared
screen, Each sees the other pointing