Understanding how network performance affects user experience of remote guidance

Much research has been done to support remote collaboration on physical tasks. However, the focus of the research has been mainly on system and interface design and their impact on collaboration. Relatively less attention has been paid to investigating how network performance can affect user experience and task performance. In this paper, we present a preliminary user study on this issue in which participants were asked to work collaboratively in pair using a remote mobile tele-assistance system we developed. In this study, five network scenarios were examined and network performance (QoS) was measured using four metrics including delay, jitter, bandwidth and packet loss. User experience (QoE) was measured using both objective and subjective metrics. The formal included time taken and number of instructions repeated for task performance while the latter included user ratings of quality of audio experience, quality of video experience and overall quality of experience. The results indicated that the packet loss rate in QoS is the biggest contributor to loss in QoE. We also discuss implications of the study and possible directions of future work.