Examining Real-World Use of Collaboration Tools through Body Tracking Sensors

Body tracking sensors have become cheap and accessible enough for use as a component in semi-automated long-term deployment studies on how people use collaboration tools or other interactive technology in the field. In this position paper we briefly describe our experience administering a body tracking sensor setup for a small fleet of interactive ambient displays at a university, outline the benefits and drawbacks of using body tracking data to quantitatively examine how people interact with technology, and summarize the technical and methodological issues involved. We follow with a summary of our methodological framework for integrating qualitative ethnographic methods with this quantitative and sensor-based approach.