Multimedia Showdown in Gather Town

Tired of boring online meetings? We're testing video, audio, & avatars to find the perfect mix. Early results show avatars boost engagement. Stay tuned for our findings on how to make meetings awesome.

Multimedia Showdown in Gather Town
The study environment was mocked after an American TV show named Friends.

Project Description

Are you tired of staring at blank faces on a screen? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to figure out what makes online meetings less blah and more bam.
We've thrown everyone into a virtual playground called Gather and unleashed four different communication styles: solo audio, audio-video face-off, audio-avatar dance party, and the full-on audio-video-avatar extravaganza.
While our fancy number-crunching didn't reveal a clear winner, our deep dives into what people actually think is giving us juicy gossip. Video can be a real buzzkill for some, while avatars make people feel like they belong in the conversation. We're decoding the secret sauce of engagement and getting ready to spill the beans on what makes online meetings less snoozefest and more awesome. Stay tuned for more updates as we navigate this wild world of virtual connection!

Video

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Tu, J. (2022). Meetings in the metaverse: Exploring online meeting spaces through meaningful interactions in Gather.town (Master's thesis, University of Waterloo).

Tu, J., Grinberg, A., Hancock, M., & Nacke, L. E. (2023, October). Multimedia Showdown: A Comparative Analysis of Audio, Video, and Avatar-Based Communication. In Companion Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (pp. 89-95).

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