Nods of Agreement: Webcam-Driven Avatars Improve Meeting Outcomes and Avatar Satisfaction Over Audio-Driven or Static Avatars in All-Avatar Work Videoconferencing
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Ma, Fang; Zhang, Ju; Tankelevitch, Lev; Panda, Payod; Asadi, Torang; Hewitt, Charlie; Petikam, Lohit; Clemoes, James; Gillies, Marco; Pan, Xueni; Rintel, Sean and Wilczkowiak, Marta. 2025. 'Nods of Agreement: Webcam-Driven Avatars Improve Meeting Outcomes and Avatar Satisfaction Over Audio-Driven or Static Avatars in All-Avatar Work Videoconferencing'. In: The 27th ACM SIGCHI Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (CSCW). San José, Costa Rica 9 - 13 November 2024. [Conference or Workshop Item] (Forthcoming)
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Abstract or Description
Avatars are edging into mainstream videoconferencing, but evaluation of how avatar animation modalities contribute to work meeting outcomes has been limited. We report a within-group videoconferencing experiment in which 68 employees of a global technology company, in 16 groups, used the same stylized avatars in three modalities (static picture, audio-animation, and webcam-animation) to complete collaborative decision-making tasks. Quantitatively, for meeting outcomes, webcam-animated avatars improved meeting effectiveness over the picture modality and were also reported to be more comfortable and inclusive than both other modalities. In terms of avatar satisfaction, there was a similar preference for webcam animation as compared to both other modalities. Our qualitative analysis shows participants expressing a preference for the holistic motion of webcam animation, and that meaningful movement outweighs realism for meeting outcomes, as evidenced through a systematic overview of ten thematic factors. We discuss implications for research and commercial deployment and conclude that webcam-animated avatars are a plausible alternative to video in work meetings.
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Conference or Workshop Item (Paper) |
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| Additional Information: |
Funding: Fang Ma, Ju Zhang, Xueni Pan, and Marco Gillies received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AH/T011416/1). |
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| Keywords: |
videoconferencing, work, avatar animation modalities, satisfaction, outcomes, effectiveness, alignment, comfort, inclusivity, expression, perception, preference |
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| Event Location: |
San José, Costa Rica |
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| Date range: |
9 - 13 November 2024 |
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| Item ID: |
38080 |
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| Date Deposited: |
21 Jan 2025 11:24 |
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| Last Modified: |
21 Jan 2025 11:24 |
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