FW-HTF-R: Collaborative Research: Virtual Meeting Support for Enhanced Well-Being and Equity for Game Developers

2019冠状病毒病大流行开启了远程工作的新时代，凸显了福祉、公平和包容方面的障碍。虚拟会议疲劳，即长时间视频会议后产生的疲劳，被认为对女性和有色人种尤其有害，加剧了常见的面对面不平等，如不平等的谈话时间和会议中断。为了开发更具包容性和公平的远程工作空间，本研究提出了以下问题：未来的虚拟会议平台如何更好地支持福祉和社会公平？为了解决这个问题，该项目专注于一个独特的合适群体：电子游戏开发者，他们非常依赖于拥有不同专业知识（如设计，编程和美术）的团队内部的虚拟会议，代表着约1600亿美元的产业（超过400亿美元的国内），并努力解决工作场所的社会公平问题。这项跨学科研究正在利用这些员工的见解，确定不同团队之间进行虚拟会议的一般最佳实践，以最大限度地减少疲劳，提高幸福感、公平性和包容性。该项目使用混合方法来确定和测试影响用户福利的虚拟会议平台功能。研究1利用社交媒体的自然语言处理，对虚拟会议元素如何与福祉和社会公平相关进行了广泛的归纳理解。研究2利用对远程工作人员的调查，对虚拟会议特征与用户福利的统计关系进行了探索性分析。研究3使用有针对性的访谈来定性地解读电子游戏开发者背景下关于虚拟会议的更广泛见解。研究4使用一个在线实验来测试关于哪些特定的虚拟会议功能可以提高视频游戏开发者福利的假设。与游戏开发团队一起在虚拟现实会议平台上研究5个原型和用户测试，以确定哪些设计功能可以促进福祉和社会公平。根据这些研究的见解，正在编写一份公开的“福祉与公平虚拟会议指南”。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in a new era of remote work, highlighting barriers to well-being, equity, and inclusion. Virtual meeting fatigue, the exhaustion that occurs after long periods of videoconferencing, has been identified as especially harmful to women and people of color, compounding common face-to-face inequities like unequal talking time and interruptions in meetings. To develop more inclusive and equitable remote workspaces, this research asks: How can future virtual meeting platforms better support well-being and social equity? To address this question, the project focuses on a uniquely appropriate group: video game developers, who rely heavily on virtual meetings within teams with varied expertise (i.e., design, programming, and art), represent an estimated $160 billion industry (over $40 billion domestic), and grapple with issues of social equity in the workplace. The interdisciplinary research is using insights from these workers to identify general best practices for virtual meetings among diverse teams to minimize fatigue and improve well-being, equity, and inclusion. The project uses a mixed-methodological approach to pinpoint and test virtual meeting-platform features that influence user welfare. Study 1 utilizes natural language processing of social media to develop a broad, inductive understanding of how virtual meeting elements relate to well-being and social equity. Study 2 utilizes a survey of remote workers in an exploratory analysis of how virtual meeting features statistically relate to user welfare. Study 3 uses targeted interviews to qualitatively interpret broader insights about virtual meetings within the context of video game developers. Study 4 uses an online experiment to test hypotheses about which specific virtual meeting features enhance video game-developer welfare. Study 5 prototypes and user tests a virtual reality meeting platform with game development teams to confirm which design features promote well-being and social equity. A public “Guide to Virtual Meetings for Well-Being and Equity” is being developed based on insights from these studies.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.