Using teleporting, awareness and multiple views to improve teamwork in collaborative virtual environments

Mobile Group Dynamics (MGDs) are a suite of techniques that help people work together in large-scale collaborative virtual environments (CVEs). The present paper describes the implementation and evaluation of three additional MGDs techniques (teleporting, awareness and multiple views) which, when combined, produced a 4 times increase in the amount that participants communicated in a CVE and also significantly increased the extent to which participants communicated over extended distances in the CVE. The MGDs were evaluated using an urban planning scenario using groups of either seven (teleporting + awareness) or eight (teleporting + awareness + multiple views) participants. The study has implications for CVE designers, because it provides quantitative and qualitative data about how teleporting, awareness and multiple views improve groupwork in CVEs. Categories and Subject Descriptors (according to ACM CCS): C.2.4 [Computer-Communication Networks]: Distributed Systems – Distributed applications; H.1.2 [Models and Principles]: User/Machine Systems – Human factors; Software psychology; H.5.1 [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: Multimedia Information Systems – Artificial, augmented and virtual realities; H.5.3 [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: Group and Organization Interfaces – Collaborative computing; Computer-supported cooperative work; Synchronous interaction; I.3.7[Computer Graphics]: Three Dimensional Graphics and Realism – Virtual Reality