In today's in-person group discussions, smartphones are integrated as intelligent workstations; yet given their co-presence in such face-to-face interactions, whether and how they may enhance people's behavioral engagement with others remains underexplored. This work investigates how animating personal smartphones to move expressively, without compromising regular functions, can transform them into active embodied facilitators for co-located group interaction. In the four-stranger small-group discussion setting, guided by Tuckman's group-development theory, we conducted a design workshop (n=12) to identify problematic group-work circumstances and design expressive, attention-efficient animated phone facilitations. Subsequently, we developed AnimaStand, a movement-enabled phone stand that animates phones to deliver group facilitation cues according to conversation dynamics. In a between-subjects Wizard-of-Oz study (n=56) with four-stranger group discussions, where everyone's phone was on an AnimaStand, the facilitations re-engaged inactive members, enhancing group dynamics, task operation performance, and relationships. We finally discuss prospects for more adaptive and generalizable animated device personal facilitation.

翻译：在当今面对面的小组讨论中，智能手机被整合为智能工作站；然而，考虑到它们在此类面对面互动中的共存，它们是否以及如何能增强人们与他人的行为参与度，仍未得到充分探索。本研究探讨了如何在不损害常规功能的前提下，通过使个人智能手机进行富有表现力的移动动画，将其转变为促进共处小组互动的主动具身化促进者。在由四位陌生人组成的小组讨论场景中，以塔克曼的群体发展理论为指导，我们进行了一个设计工作坊（n=12），以识别有问题的团队协作情境，并设计富有表现力且注意力高效的动画电话促进方案。随后，我们开发了AnimaStand，一个支持移动的手机支架，它能使手机根据对话动态进行动画，以传递小组促进线索。在一项采用"绿野仙踪"法的组间对照研究（n=56）中，四位陌生人进行小组讨论，每个人的手机都放置在AnimaStand上，这些促进措施重新激活了不活跃的成员，改善了小组动态、任务操作表现和成员关系。最后，我们讨论了更具适应性和普适性的动画设备个性化促进的前景。