3 the Design Process of Talking in Circles 3.1 Speaker Identification

Having settled upon audio as the primary communicative channel, a first basic faculty required for a successful multi-party audioconferencing environment was the ability to identify the participants, particularly the current speaker. As discussed in the previous chapter, such identification is difficult in traditional audioconferencing environments. This problem, among many others, benefits from the graphical component of the Talking in Circles interface. The aim was helping users map the voices they hear to the circles representing the respective participants, that is, to help transform the user experience from disembodied voices to a more cohesive perception of fellow participants. Collocated graphics, displayed on participants’ circles in accompaniment of their speech, are used for this purpose.