Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1 Introduction

1.1 The "Convergence" Theme
1.2 The Key Constraints
1.3 Summary
1.4 Thesis Organization

CHAPTER 2 Background

2.1 The AVSA Concept

2.1.1 Traditional Videoconferencing
2.1.2 Media Spaces
2.1.3 The Deficiencies

2.2 Development Strategy
2.3 Evaluation Strategy

CHAPTER 3 Stage 1: System Considerations

3.1 The Qualities
3.2 Interface

3.2.1 Presentation
3.2.2 Input
3.2.3 Feedback

3.3 Architecture

3.3.1 Location of AVSA
3.3.2 The AVSA structure

3.4 Summary

CHAPTER 4 Stage 2: Rapid Prototyping

4.1 Ingredients

4.1.1 Hardware
4.1.2 Software
4.1.3 Developers and reviewers

4.2 Recipe
4.3 Preparation

4.3.1 The hardware and software
4.3.2 The development team
4.3.3 Linking to the Media space
4.3.4 Sending requests to the media space
4.3.5 Querying the media space
4.3.6 Integrating the ASR
4.3.7 The first interface

4.4 Enhancements

4.4.1 A more descriptive interface
4.4.2 Improving the text interface

4.5 User impressions

4.5.1 The concept
4.5.2 The system

4.6 Summary

CHAPTER 5 Stage 3: Self-Contained System

5.1 Ingredients
5.2 Recipe
5.3 Preparation

5.3.1 Ingredients
5.3.2 The development team
5.3.3 Linking to the Media space
5.3.4 Sending requests to the media space
5.3.5 Two-way communication
5.3.6 The ASR
5.3.7 The interface

5.4 Enhancements

5.4.1 Improving the interface
5.4.2 Adding system features

5.5 Summary

CHAPTER 6 Future Considerations and Final Words

6.1 Future Considerations

6.1.1 Privacy
6.1.2 Different levels of access
6.1.3 Video Mail
6.1.4 Directing speech
6.1.5 Controlling Volume
6.1.6 Speech Recognition
6.1.7 Increasing Access

6.2 Summary and Conclusions
6.3 Contributions

References