In-person small-group conversations play a crucial role in everyday life; however, facilitating effective group interaction can be challenging, as the real-time nature demands full attention, offers no opportunity for revision, and requires interpreting non-verbal cues. Using Mixed Reality to provide proactive information support shows promise in helping individuals engage in and contribute to group conversations. We present a preliminary participatory design and qualitative study (N = 10) using focus groups and two technology probes to explore the opportunities of designing proactive information support in in-person small-group conversations. We reveal key design opportunities concerning how to maximize the benefits of proactive information support and how to effectively design such supporting information. Our study is crucial for paving the way toward designing future proactive AI agents to enable the paradigm of augmented in-person small-group conversation experience.

翻译：面对面小组对话在日常生活中发挥着至关重要的作用；然而，促进有效的群体互动具有挑战性，因为其实时性要求参与者全神贯注、没有修改机会，并且需要解读非语言线索。利用混合现实技术提供主动信息支持，在帮助个体参与并贡献于小组对话方面展现出潜力。我们通过焦点小组和两个技术探针，开展了一项初步的参与式设计与定性研究（N = 10），以探索在面对面小组对话中设计主动信息支持的机遇。我们揭示了关键的设计机遇，涉及如何最大化主动信息支持的益处，以及如何有效设计此类支持信息。我们的研究对于铺平道路，以设计未来的主动式人工智能代理，实现增强型面对面小组对话体验的新范式至关重要。