CHS: Small: Collaborative Research: Social Virtual Reality Technology to Improve Networked Meetings

会议对于在工作场所完成工作至关重要。工作场所正在采用网络会议，如视频会议，以节省成本，支持多地点团队，并减少流行病的健康风险。然而，视频会议在如何支持团队沟通和联系方面受到限制。该项目探索构建社交虚拟现实（VR）技术来改善网络会议。VR显示出作为一种以新的方式支持会议的技术的前景，因为它将团队成员置于共享的媒体空间中，这允许熟悉的沟通策略（例如转向正在说话的人并用手打手势）。VR还允许为会议场景添加有用的增强功能，例如改变房间的外观（从董事会会议室到休息室），并提供易于使用的数字化工具（例如匿名投票或计时器）。 该项目将开发社交VR工具，通过帮助参与者平衡参与，时间管理，做出决定，坚持议程，并实现社交联系和支持想法来改善面对面会议。这些创新有可能使用VR使在线会议更加有效和令人满意。为了研究社交VR技术如何增强网络会议，该项目将（1）使用研究设计方法，以团队会议和人际沟通理论为动力，迭代概念化和开发网络VR中的新技术社交增强;（2）进行受控实验室和更具生态有效性的实地研究;（3）为虚拟现实中的社会增强网络会议的设计提供理论和启示。该团队将构建一个可扩展的VR测试平台，以实现迭代的快速原型设计。因此，社会增强VR网络会议的预期研究贡献包括测试平台、原型、实验室和现场研究结果，这些结果与特定社会增强的有效性、理论和设计意义有关。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Meetings are essential to getting things done in the workplace. Workplaces are adopting networked meetings, such as video conferencing, to save costs, support multi-location teams, and reduce pandemic health risks. Yet, video conferencing is limited in how it supports team communication and connection. This project explores building social virtual reality (VR) technology to improve networked meetings. VR shows promise as a technology for supporting meetings, in new ways, because it puts team members in a shared media space, which allows for familiar communication tactics (such as turning toward someone who is talking and gesturing with your hands). VR also allows adding helpful enhancements to meeting situations, such as changing how the room looks (from a boardroom to breakroom), and providing easy-to-use digital tools (such as anonymous voting or timers). This project will develop social VR tools to improve face-to-face meetings by helping participants balance participation, time manage, come to decisions, stick to an agenda, and achieve social connection and support for ideas. These innovations have the potential to use VR to make online meetings more effective and satisfying. To investigate how social VR technology can enhance networked meetings, this project will (1) use a research-through-design approach to iteratively conceptualize and develop novel technical social augmentations in networked VR, motivated by theories of team meetings and interpersonal communication; (2) perform controlled laboratory and more ecologically valid field studies; and (3) develop theory and implications for design of social augmentation networked meetings in VR. The team will build an extensible VR testbed to enable iterative, rapid prototyping. Thus, expected research contributions for socially augmented VR networked meetings include a testbed, prototypes, lab and field study findings regarding the efficacy of particular social augmentations, theory, and implications for design.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.