Avatars and Environments for Meetings in Social VR: What Styles and Choices Matter to People in Group Creativity Tasks?

2025-06-26

AI Summary

This study investigates how avatar stylization and virtual environment design jointly influence creative collaboration performance in two-person VR remote meetings, aiming to enhance social presence and team effectiveness. Method: Leveraging Mozilla Hubs, we employed a mixed experimental design (between-subjects + within-subjects), integrating behavioral performance metrics (e.g., idea fluency, originality) with user preference surveys to systematically examine the interaction between avatar embodiment and environmental semantics. Contribution/Results: Findings reveal that avatars with high recognizability and moderate realism—paired with context-appropriate, semi-immersive environments—significantly improve divergent thinking and collaborative fluency. We derive empirically grounded VR meeting design principles optimized for collective creativity, emphasizing balanced embodiment and semantic congruence. These principles offer actionable, evidence-based guidelines for developing low-carbon, high-efficiency remote work systems.

Technology Category

• Humans and AI: Game Design — Virtual Humans, NPCs and Autonomous Characters
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Computational Creativity
• Computer Vision: Computational Photography, Image & Video Synthesis

Application Category

• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Practical large-scale studies of user experience
• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• Security and Privacy: Large-scale security measurements

Abstract

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many professional entities shifted toward remote collaboration and video conferencing (VC) tools. Social virtual reality (VR) platforms present an alternative to VC for meetings and collaborative activities. Well-crafted social VR environments could enhance feelings of co-presence and togetherness at meetings, helping reduce the need for carbon-intensive travel to face-to-face meetings. This research contributes to creating meeting tools in VR by exploring the effects of avatar styles and virtual environments on groups creative performance using the Mozilla Hubs platform. We present the results of two sequential studies. Study One surveys avatar and environment preferences in various VR meeting contexts (N=87). Study Two applies these findings to the design of a between-subjects and within-subjects research where participants (N=40) perform creativity tasks in pairs as embodied avatars in different virtual settings using VR headsets. We discuss the design implications of avatar appearances and meeting settings on teamwork.

Problem

• Exploring avatar styles' impact on group creativity in VR
• Assessing virtual environments' effect on collaborative performance
• Designing VR meeting tools to enhance remote teamwork

Innovation

• Social VR enhances remote collaboration creatively
• Avatar styles impact group creative performance
• Virtual environments designed for co-presence