Belonging There: VROOM-ing into the Uncanny Valley of XR Telepresence

The world is entering a new normal of hybrid organisations, in which it will be common that some members are co-located and others are remote. Hybridity is rife with asymmetries that affect our sense of belonging in an organisational space. This paper reports a study of an XR Telepresence technology probe to explore how remote workers might present themselves and be perceived as an equal and unique embodied being in a workplace. VROOM (Virtual Robot Overlay for Online Meetings) augments a standard Mobile Robotic Telepresence experience by (1) adding a virtual avatar overlay of the remote person to the local space, viewable through a HoloLens worn by the local user, through which the remote user can gesture and express themselves, and (2) giving the remote user an immersive 360° view of the local space, captured by a 360° camera on the robot, which they can view through a VR headset. We ran a study to understand how pairs of participants (one local and one remote) collaborate using VROOM in a search and word-guessing game. Our findings illustrate that there is much potential for a system like VROOM to support dynamic collaborative activities in which embodiment, gesturing, mobility, spatial awareness, and non-verbal expressions are important. However, there are also challenges to be addressed, specifically around proprioception, the mixing of a physical robot body with a virtual human avatar, uncertainties of others' views and capabilities, fidelity of expressions, and the appearance of the avatar. We conclude with further design suggestions and recommendations for future work.

CCS Concepts: • Human-centered computing → Mixed / augmented reality; Empirical studies in collaborative and social computing.