AwareMe: Addressing Fear of Public

Speaking through Awareness

Mark Bubel

Wen Shi

Abstract

University College London

UCL Interaction Centre
WC1E 6BT, UK

University College London

UCL Interaction Centre
WC1E 6BT, UK

mark.jr.15@ucl.ac.uk

shi.wen.15@ucl.ac.uk

Ruiwen Jiang

Audrey Tse

Fear of public speaking is an anxiety that most people

encounter at some point in their lives. Some people
with extreme fear of public speaking will avoid it at all
costs, even if it means their personal, professional, and
social growth may be hindered.

University College London

UCL Interaction Centre
WC1E 6BT, UK

University College London

UCL Interaction Centre
WC1E 6BT, UK

r.jiang@ucl.ac.uk

audrey.tse.15@ucl.ac.uk

Christine H. Lee
University College London
UCL Interaction Centre
WC1E 6BT, UK
christine.lee.15@ucl.ac.uk

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CHI'16 Extended Abstracts, May 07-12, 2016, San Jose, CA, USA
ACM 978-1-4503-4082-3/16/05.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2851581.2890633

AwareMe incorporates aspects of Cognitive Behavioral

Therapy (CBT) and good public speaking practices to
make an empowering assistive technology for people
who suffer from different levels of public speaking
anxiety. AwareMe is a device that provides feedback on
voice pitch, filler words, and words per minute during
presentation practice. It has a detachable wristband,
worn during presentations, that provides visual and
haptic feedback. Our approach differs from existing
solutions because it focuses on bringing the users
attention to how their anxiety influences their speech
patterns; this awareness helps them to directly improve
their public speaking skills.

Author Keywords
Fear of speech; glossophobia; speaking anxiety; speech
disfluency; cognitive behavioral psychology; wearable.

ACM Classification Keywords

H.5.m [Information interfaces and presentation (e.g.,
HCI)]: Miscellaneous;

Affinity Diagram:
Key Findings
1) Everyone practices a lot.
2) Interaction with audience /
eye contact / body language /
feedback is important.
3) Everyone experiences
some form of physical
sensation before a speech.
4) Everyone engages in some
kind of pre-speech
preparation.
5) Fear of being judged.
6) Tools on stage
(microphone, podium,
teleprompter, clicker).
7) Post performance: relief
and little reflection.

Figure 1: Preparation section.

Introduction
Fear of public speaking is unique in that it is invisible to
other people. Further, there may be a stigma attached
to fear of public speaking, even though research shows
that this fear affects a wide range of people (Stein,
Walker & Forde, 1996).
We chose to design an assistive technology for this user
group because we think it is an anxiety that is
overlooked in favor of what others may consider
traditional physical disabilities. Our user group includes
anyone with a public speaking fear that wants to
improve; however, people with years of experience in
public speaking may not find AwareMe useful.

awareness to users during speeches through visual and

haptic feedback.

Research and Establishing Requirements

We immediately delved into understanding all types of
public speaking anxiety. We conducted semi-structured
interviews with ten individuals with a range of public
speaking anxieties and professions. An affinity diagram
(Figure 1) was used to organize our data and to allow
themes to emerge. We noticed participants spoke about
their anxieties in three steps: pre-presentation
preparation, during presentation, and post-presentation
review. Participants stated they dedicated most of their
time to the preparation stage, so we decided to create
a design dedicated to the preparation process.

Our initial research demonstrated that solutions already

exist to help reduce fear of public speaking. These
solutions are split between Cognitive Behavioral
Therapy (CBT) treatments and virtual reality (VR)
stimulations meant to acclimate the user to public
speaking. CBT treatments include conventional therapy
sessions as well as novel, online-based therapy that
companies and academics such as Joyable and Talk to
Me want to change (Joyable, 2015; Botella et al.,
2010). Bloomberg has created VR stimulations using
Facebooks Oculus Rift, although our interview
participants expressed doubt in whether VR stimulation
can actually replace real life practice (Tech Insider,
2015). In addition, therapy sessions and VR technology
are rather expensive and sometimes inaccessible.

We gained a psychological viewpoint during an

interview with a therapist specializing in CBT, a proven
method to cure a person of anxiety disorders. The
therapist introduced us to the Five Areas Model that
aims to alter patients unhelpful thinking styles so that
emotions, physical feelings, and behavior can
subsequently be altered for the better (William &
Garland, 2002). It was only after our meeting with the
therapist that we realized fear of public speaking a
social anxiety cannot be easily nor quickly cured with
technology. With this knowledge, we started thinking
about how our design could include a CBT aspect during
the preparation phase mentioned above.

Instead of designing an assistive technology that

attempted to replace CBT, we decided to help reduce
anxiety by 1) informing the users of their speech
patterns during presentation practice and 2) bringing

We then conducted a small-scale ethnographic study at

a Toastmasters meeting, an almost century old
nonprofit that strives to improve its members comfort
in front of an audience. We also attended a Public
Speaking for Beginners Meetup event, which consisted
of impromptu speeches and other activities to help
2

participants overcome their fears. We found it helpful to

watch both novice and experienced speakers practice in
front of audiences because we were able to watch a
variety of performers body language, speaking styles,
and audience reactions.

Figure 2: An early sketch of

AwareMe.

The research we conducted resulted in a set of user

requirements that called for a design that was
inconspicuous for the user and audience, lowered the
users anxiety through creating acute awareness, and
improved the users public speaking skills.

Design Process
We wanted to create a tangible object separate from
mobile phones, computers, or tablets because those
items were often the source of anxiety (Thome,
Hrenstam, & Hagberg, 2011).

Figure 3: First physical prototype

Originating from the first round of interviews mentioned

above, we started off with sketches and three
storyboards of our preliminary ideas that included:

of AwareMe base device, a

balloon filled with clay to
stimulate a malleable feel.

Virtual Reality Glasses

These glasses would alter the speakers perception of

the audiences body language. We got this idea while
reading a paper about the use of VR for public
speaking (Slater et al., 2006).
Motion Sensor Game that would implement power

Figure 4: Second physical

prototype of AwareMe.

posing exercises, karaoke-style pacing exercises to

improve on pacing and volume of speech, and a
Whac-a-Mole inspired eye contact exercise to
establish and maintain appropriate distribution of eye
contact with the audience. We found that these
techniques were important in building a rapport with
the audience (Argyle & Dean, 1965).

Wearable Earpiece that plays on the idea of

augmenting the socially-accepted earpiece with pace

of speech monitor, heart rate, and breathing rate.
We found that some of these factors are common
physical symptoms for a person with anxiety (NHS,
2014).
We conducted informal interviews using these three
storyboards, but we received mixed feedback. Several
rounds of storyboarding, interviewing, and iterating
helped us to finally realize that one cannot reliably and
quickly cure public speaking anxiety without the
guidance of a trained professional or expensive
equipment that may be too intrusive for our users.
We extracted that one could reliably predict rising
anxiety through different measurements of speech and
voice while reading academic papers about anxiety and
voice analysis. In particular, voice pitch and number of
pauses within a speech can accurately predict a
persons level of anxiety during a speech (Laukka et al.,
2008).
Our user interviews helped to further refine our final
design. We noticed in early interviews that people
afraid of public speaking practiced so much that they
could robotically repeat the speech to the audience with
little thought to body language or audience emotions.
We found that their anxiety blocked them from being
fully aware of themselves and how they sounded during
a speech. This allows for a huge opportunity to reduce
anxiety and improve the quality of our users
presentation.

At this point, our group was confident that we would

design something unobtrusive, inexpensive, appealing
to wear, and that provides awareness to the user.

AwareMe
Using low fidelity techniques, we came up with a device
that has two parts: a base with integrated UI and
wearable wristband that has haptic motors and LED
display (Figure 2, 3, & 4).

Figure 5: AwareMe changes

colors to signify the time left.

The base device first trains itself to recognize the users

speech patterns and thus predict anxiety by listening to
the user speak during a short initial training session
(Figure 6). The user then inputs their performance time
length, completes a breathing exercise, and records
their practice. While the user is practicing, the base
device changes colors to give the user visual feedback
about the amount of time left for the speech (Figure 5),
a function inspired by Toastmasters. After recording,
the base device provides feedback and advice on three
key aspects of speech: voice pitch, filler words, and
words per minute. The user can continue to practice
with AwareMe to improve on certain aspects such as
varying pitch in their performance delivery, lowering
their words per minute, or trying to eliminate filler
words. This feedback is not consulted while giving a

speech as it would be too distracting for a user with

speech anxiety. It is only for the users self
improvement after the speech.
The wearable wristband is used while giving a speech
(Figure 7). It provides the same visual feedback using
color to indicate time left; however, one can only see
the LED color strip underside ones wrist for discretion.
We chose to design the LED display under the wrist
because our users were very concerned with privacy
and not looking inexperienced to the audience. As well
as color, the wristband also provides one haptic ping
when it turns amber, and two pings when it turns red
to signify that time has run out. This was another
design decision directly influenced by user interviews.
The third function of the wearable is to provide a
soothing haptic feedback when the device detects the
users anxiety may be rising based on its voice
recognition capacity.
These functions were quickly built using existing
technologies to create a working prototype for testing.
Several iOS devices and software that transformed our
low fidelity user interface (UI) screens into a clickable
experience were key to this process (Figure 10).

User Testing
We recruited five users from a London-based
Toastmasters Chapter to test our prototype. We
created three tasks to test the main functions of our
device. We were interested in learning if the user could
train the device, start practice mode, and give a speech
with AwareMe wristband.
Each participant sat with two members of our group
and used the AwareMe device to try and execute our
Figure 6: 3D model of AwareMe.

Figure 7: AwareMe Wristband.

User Testing Feedback

I think it would be quite
good actually. Especially for
people who would be learning
in the first instance, so
learning how to control their
tempo and their voice. I think
it would be useful.

So you could even be as

clever as: if youre too fast,
its a fast vibration, if youre
too slow, its a slow vibration.
So you could be quite
dynamic with it.

When you set it up, if you

could customize the
vibrations, you can have
another buzz that tells you if
youre saying too many ums
and ahs, if you can customize
the vibrations, it would be
good.

user tasks. We encouraged them to use the think aloud

method during the testing. This method yielded
interesting data even with a small group of people and
it allowed us to understand their thought processes
attached to their actions (Fonteyn, Kuipers & Grobe,
1993). As part of the final task, the users had to give a
two-minute speech while wearing the device. Before
and after this task, we asked a list of open-ended
questions to further understand their thoughts and
feelings of the experience. A sample of these questions
included:
1.
2.
3.

Do you understand why you had to set up the

device before use?
How did you feel wearing something on your
wrist?
Do you have suggestions to change the haptic
feedback?

After the speeches, one of our group members

conducted semi-structured interviews with the
participants (Figure 9). These interviews gave us
invaluable feedback about how to change AwareMe.
One change was that the haptic feedback pings would
be used to signify how much time is left rather than
anxiety notifications. We also decided to allow the
haptic feedback to be turned on and off. Users also
commented that they did not like the abrupt vibration
pattern, so we decided on a soothing, sweeping pattern
that will speed up or slow down depending on the rate
of speech.

Figure 8: Design process

From these new requirements, we created 3D models
to display an HD image of our device (Figures 5 & 6).

Figure 9: User testing AwareMe with Toastmasters

Discussion
AwareMe specifically highlights time and anxiety
signifiers in an inconspicuous way without requiring a
long time commitment to learn or use. We consciously
incorporated existing public speaking anxiety solutions,
and aimed to bring the users attention to the anxiety,
so that they can take the proper measures to reduce
the fear.
Our challenge during the user centered design (UCD)
process was realizing that social anxiety cannot be
easily cured and it is hard to detect from a research
prospective because of ethical reasons. Storyboarding
was absolutely essential to exploring a range of ideas
because our design solutions changed several times. In
fact, our design process closely modeled the design
generation and convergence model (Figure 8) as
introduced in Sketching User Experiences Workbook
(Greenberg et al., 2011).
Our design proved to be useful during our usability
testing with Toastmasters, but we believe that further
5

would want to test the device in a real-life public

speaking situation, in order to observe the speakers
natural behavior. We could not completely replicate this
environment during usability testing due to time
constraints.

Pitch is the highs and lows

of ones tone. The interface
displays users pitch along with
the optimal pitch range.

One main function of the device that we want to

validate further is the haptic feedback of rising anxiety
level to determine if it is too distracting. We would also
want to explore tracking users progress through a
website or mobile application. Ultimately, AwareMe is a
useful device for any user who wants to target and
improve their speech patterns.

5.

Joyable. (2015). Www.Joyable.com. Retrieved 28

November, 2015, from https://joyable.com/

6.

Laukka, P., Linnman, C., hs, F., Pissiota, A.,

Frans, ., Faria, V., ... & Furmark, T. (2008). In a
nervous voice: Acoustic analysis and perception of
anxiety in social phobics speech. Journal of
Nonverbal Behavior, 32(4), 195-214.

7.

NHS. (2014). NHS UK. Retrieved 28 November,

2015, from
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Anxiety/Pages/Sym
ptoms.aspx

8.

Slater, M., Pertaub, D., Barker, C., & Clark, D.

(2006). An Experimental Study on Fear of Public
Speaking Using a Virtual Environment.
CyberPsychology & Behavior, 9(5).
doi:10.1089/cpb.2006.9.627.

9.

Stein, M.B, Walker, J.R & Forde,

D.R. (1996). Public-Speaking Fears in a Community
Sample Prevalence, Impact on Functioning, and
Diagnostic Classification. Arch Gen
Psychiatry, 53(2), 169-174.

Acknowledgements

Filler words (i.e. um like uh)

can sound unprofessional and
distracting. The interface displays
the number of filler words spoken
per minute by the user.

This interface how fast users

speak in comparison to the
optimal rate of speech.

We would like to thank our primary mentor, Rose

Johnson, and our preliminary mentor, Geraint Jones,
for providing helpful resources and advice. We would
also like to express our gratitude to the Toastmasters
group who agreed to test our prototype and gave us
invaluable feedback.

References

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Insider. Retrieved 29 November, 2015, from
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Figure 10: UI screens

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