Books with Voices Paper Transcripts as a Tangible Interface to Oral Histories.pdf

Books with Voices: Paper Transcripts as a Tangible Interface to Oral Histories Scott R. Klemmer 1 srk@ Jamey Graham 2 jamey@ Gregory J. Wolff 2 wolff@ James A. Landay 1 landay@ 1 Group for User Interface Research Computer Science Division University of California Berkeley, CA 94720-1776, USA 2 Ricoh Innovations 2882 Sand Hill Road, Suite 115 Menlo Park, CA 94025-7064 USA ABSTRACT Our contextual inquiry into the practices of oral historians unearthed a curious incongruity. While oral historians consider interview recordings a central historical artifact, these recordings sit unused after a written transcript is produced. We hypothesized that this is largely because books are more usable than recordings. Therefore, we created Books with Voices: bar-code augmented paper transcripts enabling fast, random access to digital video interviews on a PDA. We present quantitative results of an evaluation of this tangible interface with 13 participants. They found this lightweight, structured access to original recordings to offer substantial benefits with minimal overhead. Oral historians found a level of emotion in the video not available in the printed transcript. The video also helped readers clarify the text and observe nonverbal cues. Keywords tangible interface, interactive paper, video retrieval, reading, augmented reality, handheld, oral history INTRODUCTION “Oral history is primary source material obtained by recording the spoken words—generally by means of planned, tape-recorded interviews—of persons deemed to harbor hitherto unavailable information worth preserving” [25]. The discipline began in 1948 when Allan Nevins founded the Columbia University Oral History Research Office. Our experiences reading, doing contextual inquiry, and conducting oral histories led us to develop Books with Voices: bar-code augmented paper transcripts enabling fast, random access to digital video interviews on a PDA. Members of the Regi