Presence in a Distributed Media Environment

Before we do any user experience design for pervasive computing, we need to know how user experience, or a particular experience for example presence, is influenced by certain aspects of pervasive computing, such as different interaction methods, content distribution and the embodiment of digital entities. In a pervasive context , different user groups may also experience differently. We conducted an experiment to test influence of these aspects and the user’s culture background on the presence experience in a distributed interactive movie. The results shows that interaction methods had on influence, while embodiment had mixed effects on presence. The influence of the culture background is clear – Chinese perceived more presence than Dutch in all conditions. The influence of distribution on presence needs to be further investigated, but from the current results we tend to believe that distributed presentations decrease presence.