Abstract

With the rapid development of mobile and immersive technologies, the boundary between the digital and real world is increasingly blurred, giving rise to hybrid spaces. Hybrid spaces have permeated daily life and reshaped spatial meaning-making and social interaction. Despite their growing prevalence, empirical understanding of human experiences in hybrid spaces remains limited. If left unexamined, hybrid spaces risk becoming technology-centered rather than human-centered environments that overlook socio-cultural dimensions, potentially leading to harmful consequences for individuals and society. To investigate human experience in hybrid spaces, this thesis comprises five studies and uses gameful systems as research probes. Prior literature identifies collaboration as a central theme in hybrid-spaces research; however, existing work provides limited empirical insight into the social dynamics of group collaboration in such settings. Studies 1 and 2 examine two collaboration configurations: (1) Mixed-Presence Collaboration (Study 1), integrating co-located and remote participants, and (2) Shared Augmented Reality (Study 2), where co-located users interact within a digitally layered environment. Alongside collaboration, the social ramifications of hybrid spaces—particularly the dynamics of trust—remain underexplored. Study 3 examines how people establish and manage trust in hybrid spaces, revealing how fairness, privacy, safety, and social acceptance are negotiated across intertwined digital and physical contexts. Building on the growing trend of public creativity and user-generated content, this thesis also explores the role of Generative AI in supporting interactive content creation by everyday users. Although interactive content is central to hybrid spaces, creating it remains technically demanding for non-expert users. Study 4 introduces DiaryPlay, an AI-assisted authoring system that enables users to express personal experiences by creating and sharing role-playing, interactive visual narratives. Finally, this thesis examines everyday information searching in hybrid spaces. As digital information layers overlapping physical surroundings become increasingly dense and recent advances in language models enable multimodal, conversational search, understanding remains limited regarding how people use these capabilities in practice, as well as their possibilities and limitations. Study 5 presents UrbanSearch, a technology probe that explores AI-powered, context-aware information searching within urban environments. Through contextual inquiry, I identify user behaviors and expectations, as well as limitations and potential risks, and derive implications for future design and development. In conclusion, this thesis contributes empirical insights, design implications, and novel interactive systems that advance our understanding of human experiences in hybrid spaces.

Publication Date

1-2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Student Type

Graduate

Degree Name

Computing and Information Sciences (Ph.D.)

Department, Program, or Center

Computing and Information Sciences Ph.D, Department of

College

Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences

Advisor

Konstantinos Papangelis

Advisor/Committee Member

Nicolas Lalone

Advisor/Committee Member

Garreth W. Tigwell

Campus

RIT – Main Campus

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