=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2617/paper2
|storemode=property
|title=Exploring the Use of Drones for Taking Accessible Selfies with Elderly
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2617/paper2.pdf
|volume=Vol-2617
|authors=Yuan Yao,Weiwei Zhang,Soojeong Yoo,Callum Parker,Jihong Jeung
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/chi/YaoZYPJ20
}}
==Exploring the Use of Drones for Taking Accessible Selfies with Elderly==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2617/paper2.pdf
Exploring the Use of Drones for Taking
Accessible Selfies with Elderly
Yuan Yao Callum Parker Abstract
Tsinghua University The University of Sydney Selfie taking is a popular social pastime, and is an impor-
Beijing, China Sydney, Australia tant part of socialising online. This activity is popular with
yaoyuan18@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn callum.parker@sydney.edu.au
young people but is also becoming more prevalent with
older generations. Despite this, there are a number of ac-
cessibility issues when taking selfies. In this research, we
Weiwei Zhang Jihong Jeung investigate preferences from elderly citizens when taking a
Tsinghua University Tsinghua University selfie, to understand the current challenges. As a potential
Beijing, China Beijing, China solution to address the challenges identified, we propose
zww19@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn jihong95@tsinghua.edu.cn
the use of drones and present a novel concept for hands
free selfie taking. With this work, we hope to trigger con-
versation around how such a technology can be utilised to
Soojeong Yoo enable elderly citizens, and more broadly people with phys-
The University of Sydney ical disabilities, the ability to easily take part in this social
Sydney, Australia pastime.
soojeong.yoo@sydney.edu.au
Author Keywords
Selfie; Elderly citizens; Quadcopters; Human-Drone Interac-
tion
CCS Concepts
This paper is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International •Human-centered computing → User studies; HCI theory,
(CC-BY 4.0) license. Authors reserve their rights to disseminate the work on their
personal and corporate Web sites with the appropriate attribution.
concepts and models;
Interdisciplinary Workshop on Human-Drone Interaction (iHDI 2020)
CHI ’20 Extended Abstracts, 26 April 2020, Honolulu, HI, US
© Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 License.
Introduction
Selfies are self-portrait photographs usually taken with
smartphones. Taking selfies is popular social activity with
Reference Year Main content User type Control type Study design Study Size
Jane et al. [21] 2017 Cross-culture design Chinese / American Speech / Gesture Comparative study 18
Chien et al.[6] 2015 Selfies Travellers / Individuals Personal device No user study -
Jessica et al.[5] 2016 Affective Computing Common people Autonomous Evaluation study 20
Ashley et al.[8] 2017 Navigation Jogger / Walker Gesture Field study 110
Sara et al. [10] 2019 Dancing Artistes Whole-body Preliminary study 3
Avila et al. [2] 2015 Navigation Visually Impaired Persons Speech / Personal device Evaluation study 1
Florian et al. [28] 2015 Accompany Jogger Whole-body Evaluation study 13
Pascal et al. [18] 2018 Levitating tangibles Player Gesture Evaluation study 17
Sara et al. [17] 2011 Sports training Athlete Whole-body Preliminary study 1
Pascal et al. [19] 2017 VR Tactile Feedback Player Gesture No user study -
Table 1: Different application directions and target users of Human-Drone Interaction from 2011-2019.
people aged between 21 to 301 . As the demographic of alternative methods for elderly selfie taking and the uses for
technology usage widens, people of all ages are beginning the selfies.
to take selfies to share with their friends and family. Selfies,
while a fun type of photo, can also be a useful for socialis- Drones have potential to overcome these issues as they
ing - triggering conversation [27, 26], understanding some- allow for photos to be taken from virtually any angle and
one’s wellbeing [23], and community engagement [13, 12, hands-free operation [15, 11]. Table 1 shows that there has
30, 9, 16, 32]. been much research on the interactions between humans
and drones, specifically referred to as Human-Drone Inter-
However, not everyone has photography skills to take an action (HDI) [3]. This work is often combined with cameras
aesthetically pleasing selfie [22]. The current methods to [14, 20, 17], screens and projectors to provide navigation
take selfies are also not very inclusive as they can require a for pedestrians [8], joggers [28], and visually impaired users
lot of stretching to include the user in the frame while cap- [2]. At the same time, work has also shown how drones can
turing the background, which may not be possible for those be used to provide companionship [4, 5, 21].
with physical disabilities and the elderly [29]. To overcome
this, a “selfie stick” could be used to help reduce stretch- While all this work has demonstrated the usefulness of
ing, but it can be cumbersome to carry and difficult to hold drones for extending interaction, more understanding is
for elderly people, particularly those who experience hand needed regarding the design of drones for taking selfies
tremors2 . Therefore, more understanding is needed around with elderly to ensure they are accessible to a wider audi-
ence. In response to this, we investigated elderly prefer-
ences around selfie taking. From our findings, we present
1
Selfie City - http://selfiecity.net/#findings an initial concept for a selfie taking drone designed for el-
2
Essential tremors - https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/
ders and outline key opportunities and challenges that fu-
conditionsandtreatments/essential-tremor
ture work should investigate. Ultimately, the aim of this work most of them prefer the natural photos (Figure 1). Prefer-
is to trigger discussion around inclusive design of drones for ence for photo subjects include family, pets, and plants.
selfie taking. At the same time, they also like taking landscapes photos
while travelling. They also expressed a desire to share.
User Study
Study Setup 2.The problem with selfies
We organised one-on-one interviews in Nanjing, China There are two major challenges with taking selfies that were
Figure 1: Keywords for elderly brought up during the interviews. The first is a physical
with elderly who take selfies and use smartphones. Our
citizen interview . problem, our participants mentioned that they often expe-
workshop in Nanjing was attended by 35 elderly people,
ranging in age from 60 to 89 (mean=74.9, SD=7.95). All rienced difficulties with straightening their arms and had
of them were retired and the majority had more than one trouble keeping a pose for long periods of time to take a
year experience using a smartphone. The main goal of the selfie(Figure 2). Therefore, it can be difficult to find the right
workshop was to learn about the inconvenience of using perspective. Additionally, some participants also cited that
a smartphone and preferences around taking selfies. The their hands are shaky making it difficult to keep the camera
interviews lasted 10-15 minutes and focused on six ques- still - often resulting in blurred photos. The second chal-
tions: lenge identified is that most of our elderly participants had
some form of Presbyopia(Figure 1) and mentioned that they
• What problems do you have when using a smart- had trouble seeing their smartphone’s screen clearly. Par-
phone? ticularly, some apps with small and complex icons are diffi-
• How do you evaluate nice photos? cult for them. Therefore, they have to rely on others to help
• How much do you like selfies and in which situations them take photos.
do you take them?
In summary, we found that taking photos and selfies is
• How often do you take selfies?
needed by elderly citizens who want to record their lives
• What problems do you have with taking selfies? and share them with their family and friends. However, it is
• How do you evaluate a nice selfie? plagued by smartphone use and serious physical problems.
Findings
Concept
To tackle the challenges identified in the previous section,
We will now summarise the two main findings from our
such as stretching, shaking, and visual, we explore how
study:
these challenges can be overcome through the design of a
Figure 2: Physical difficulties of 1.Elderly and Selfie selfie taking drone. The purpose is to provide a photogra-
elderly. During the interview, we found that our elderly participants phy assist function for the elderly who cannot take satisfac-
are passionate about taking photos and selfies. They men- tory pictures due to physical difficulties. Figure3(a) shows
tioned that its necessary for them to take more photos and the main functionality of the drone concept, where it can
go through old photos in case their memory fades. And implicitly adjust the distance and composition of the photo
Figure 3: (a)Taking photos with different shots and perspectives by drone; (b) Group photo - family; (c) Group photo- event.
based on an individual user’s preferences. The selection Discussion and Future work
of distance includes four levels of far away, long distance, In this research, we identified key challenges that affect el-
medium distance and short distance, which can correspond derly when taking selfies. In response to these challenges
to long shots, full shots, medium shots, and close-ups in we propose a concept of a personalised selfie taking drone.
photography language. Furthermore, the perspective of the We also found that HDI has an active design space. Es-
shot can be adjusted to match the composition. pecially around photo-shooting. However, as a developing
technology, it still has problems that need to be improved.
Based on the interview data, we identified that elderly enjoy For instance, Table 1 shows that gestures are a popular in-
taking group selfies with friends and family (Figure 3(b)(c)). terface in HDI, but it requires high accuracy and low latency.
Therefore a drone is useful to ensure everyone fits into the Therefore the technology needs to be mature. Speech in-
frame by implicitly adjusting its distance and angle through teraction is also common, and enables hands-free control.
computer vision techniques, such as face or skeletal track- It can be considered more accessible than other meth-
ing. Furthermore, in the field of automatic composition re- ods [31]. However, in outdoor environments, environmen-
search, there are many mature methods to support the in- tal noise and propeller sound could cause interference.
teraction of drone selfies, such as it integrates the View There is also the more conservative method of interacting
Proposal Network (VPN), a deep learning-based model that through a remote controller or smartphone. However, this
outputs composition suggestions. [7, 24, 25]. may present a learning burden to the elderly.
Future work should continue to investigate the design of
accessible drone interfaces and further explore the poten-
tial of selfie taking drones with the elderly, with a particular [8] Ashley Colley, Lasse Virtanen, Pascal Knierim, and Jonna Häkkilä.
focus on exploring a interaction methods and feedback (vi- 2017. Investigating Drone Motion as Pedestrian Guidance. In
Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Mobile and
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Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 143–150.
Acknowledgement [9] Casey Dugan, Sven Laumer, Thomas Erickson, Wendy Kellogg, and
This work has been supported by Tsinghua University Sci- Werner Geyer. 2015. The# selfiestation: Design and Use of a Kiosk
entific Research Foundation project: NO.20197010002, for Taking Selfies in the Enterprise. In IFIP Conference on
Research on portrait parametric design for elderly users. Human-Computer Interaction. Springer, 38–46.
[10] Sara Eriksson, undefinedsa Unander-Scharin, Vincent Trichon, Carl
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