The single physical remote control, paired to a media sys tem, is no longer necessarily the only (or indeed primary) mechanism of control, with new input modalities (e.g. ges ture) and mechanisms (e.g. mobile devices) allowing any one to contribute to the input and control. This paper in vestigates the potential for extending single-user interfaces in order to support multi-user use, as a means of utilizing new inputs without having to abandon the familiar interfaces, control management behaviours and mental models that users have established. A survey was conducted investigating ex isting behaviours for managing control in terms of prevalence and acceptability. These behaviours and potential new ones were then incorporated into a multi-user system where man agement of control was virtualized, using mobile devices for input. We found that behaviours derived from existing ones (e.g. passing/taking control) were at worst functionally equiv alent to, and in some cases superior to, managing a single physical remote control. We suggest that sharing single-user TV systems implementing these behaviours offers a viable alternative to concurrent use TV systems.
Related is also work by McGill et al. REF that examined different ways a single-user interface for control of a TV supports multi-user use.
How to lose friends & alienate people: sharing control of a single-user TV system
TVX '14
Computer Science