The promise, and threat, of VR and AR for online collaboration
Like all tools, they can be a force of good, or of evil.
As VP of UX at RingCentral, I was recently asked to provide some insights on the promise of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality for online video collaboration — as if VR and AR were off in the future someplace. But, VR and AR are already here in online meetings. The current environments may seem simplistic when compared to the more futuristic scenarios in people’s imagination. But, the Hawaiian beach I’m working from in our weekly staff meeting is virtual reality. And the iPhone Memoji that turns my 7-year old into a dinosaur while she chats with her Aunt on Facetime is augmented reality. Tomorrow’s amazing tech eventually becomes today’s commonplace UI feature.
In a year that “Zoom fatigue” has become a ubiquitous cultural phenomena for hundreds of millions of people, the promise of deeper VR and AR is in reducing the micro-stresses of remote collaboration, in leveling the playing field for diverse participants, and in nurturing healthy social connections The threat of AR and VR is in further enhancing those micro-stresses and distracting collaborators from their main objective of getting stuff done.
VR levels the playing field for meeting participants, and helps users focus on the purpose of the meeting — getting stuff done
The reality of people’s physical remote workspaces can be a contributor to the micro-stresses of online meeting participants. And, these stresses can disproportionately impact traditionally disadvantaged workers — typically women, minorities, and the less financially secure. A participant’s online meeting background telegraphs information about the participant, just like the clothes you wear to work. But, your home environment is a lot more difficult to cultivate. “Code switching,” the practice of modifying affect or behavior in order to better fit in, is difficult in an online meeting environment. A meeting participant may not want to reveal cultural artifacts, proudly on display in her home environment for family to enjoy, to her office colleagues. A collaborator working with obvious baby paraphernalia in his background may be seen as less effective by peers. And, someone working by necessity from a garage, or a cluttered store room, is perceived differently than the same person in a sleek, well-lit home office.
Moreover, participants’ multi-faceted workspaces can be stressful on the other side of the camera. All those different, busy, backgrounds set out in a 4x4 grid add clutter to the user’s view. All that visual noise increases cognitive load, reducing brain power available to focus on the task at hand. Add in the fact that those coworkers randomly switch places and tend to come and go from the view, and the micro-stresses of tracking everything become overwhelming.
Here is where the promise of VR can help. Virtual backgrounds, or even simple depth of field blurring, can conceal unwanted information about the workspace. And filters can improve poor environmental lighting. Especially consider the case where a meeting host can assign a single, simple, background to all participants, or co-locate meeting participants in a relevant, and de-stressing virtual space like a coffee shop or park. And, to further reduce stress and cognitive load, participants themselves could define a virtual meeting space where they can choose which participants are “near” or “far from them, and have those participants remain in place for the duration of the conversation.
AR can help build meaningful social connection and improve communication
In real-world meetings, people thrive on the small micro-interactions that communicate information and maintain healthy social connection. When you catch the eye of a friendly colleague, the smallest signal can carry a lot of information. A raised eyebrow or a supportive smile can silently speak volumes. Even just holding the gaze for a moment longer than necessary builds connection. Presenters thrive on the audible and nonverbal communication of information from their audience. Clapping, smiling, signs of focus or distraction, expressions of comprehension or confusion, all give guidance to a presenter on how they are doing, and how to correct course on the fly. In an online meeting all of this is lost. Nobody on the other side of the glass knows who you are looking at or what you’re feeling. And, for an audience, trying to track a presenter and their content in separate experiences muddles the message and reduces comprehension, adding more micro-stress and impacting productivity.
AR in these environments can replace the real world micro-connections. An AR cartoon word-bubble floating in space over a friend’s head, that only you can see, can let you know what they are thinking and reinforce a social/emotional bond. Clapping hands emoji, displayed on audience members’ video tiles, and an audible clapping noise from the presenter’s speaker, can provide affirmation and give confidence to proceed. A wrinkled eyebrow overlay on the tiles of several audience members might be a clue to repeat the last point.
And, presenter-presentation AR, like a weather forecaster in front of a storm map, puts the speaker and the message in the same cognitive context, increasing connection and comprehension.
Poorly designed, or gratuitous, VR and AR can do more harm than good
At the same time, the excitement of AR and VR tech can lead to non-optimal outcomes. Keeping in mind the impact of cognitive load, a complex virtual or augmented environment can add distraction, reduce collaboration, comprehension, and ironically, negatively impact social connection. Worse yet, a poorly constructed virtual environment, with awkwardly implemented avatars will introduce a cognitive dissonance between the virtual experience and the expectations of real world interaction, furthering the micro-stress of the overall collaboration, reducing effective outcomes, and likely necessitate a follow-on meeting to complete the task at hand.
AR and VR, well implemented and integrated with non-virtual or augmented experiences can drive improved business outcomes
In our research at RingCentral UX, we’ve come to understand two things. First, the remote working environment is sub-optimal. The benefit of reduced commute can be outweighed by the negative impact of working under stress and with reduced social connection. Second, the whole point of collaboration at work is to get things done. The problem isn’t just the stress of online meetings, the problem is also too many online meetings. The overnight switch to remote working left all of us scrabbling to identify proper working practices that don’t lead to fatigue. In our experience and reflected in our customers’ usage figures, offices are at their most productive when there is a combination of audio, visual communication in the context of sharing and co-creating and silence. Too many meetings are unproductive and draining. But, well integrated experiences that transcend and integrate the messaging, meeting and phone experiences can make meetings more effective, reducing the number and duration of online meetings, and ultimately enable all of us to get more done with less effort.
