Optimizing Information Seeking for Multi-person Collaboration: Evaluating the Influence of Various Zoom Centers and Interaction Modals

In collaborative multi-user environments, participants must often locate and assimilate information from specific screen regions swiftly and repeatedly. This necessity can engender operational redundancies that detrimentally impact the efficacy of collaborative efforts. To address this issue, the present study conceptualizes information-seeking behaviors as screen zoom actions and devises an experimental framework wherein the zoom center and the modality of interaction serve as independent variables. The objective is to ascertain which modal of interaction facilitates the most efficient information retrieval. The findings indicate that voice commands with clearly defined semantics significantly enhance information search efficiency. Conversely, the performance of traditional keyboard_mouse inputs and rudimentary voice commands is markedly diminished. Collectively, this research delineates the interaction dynamics elicited by diverse modalities within a singular task context, thereby offering novel insights for ameliorating operational redundancies in multi-user collaborative settings.