Beyond gaze cursor: exploring information-based gaze sharing in chat

Gaze sharing is found to be beneficial for computer-mediated collaboration by several studies. Usually, a coordinate-based visualization like a gaze cursor is used which helps to reduce or replace deictic expressions and thus makes gaze sharing a useful addition for tasks where referencing is crucial. But the spatial-based visualization limits its use to What-You-See-Is-What-I-See (WYSIWIS) interfaces and puts a ceiling on group size, as multiple object tracking becomes near impossible beyond dyads. In this paper, we will explore and discuss the use of gaze sharing outside the realm of WYSIWIS interfaces and dyads by replacing the gaze cursor with information-based gaze sharing in form of a reading progress bar to a chat interface. Preliminary results with triads show that historic and present information on attention and reading behavior are a useful addition to increase group awareness.