Guidelines for Social XR Implementation of Social Cues

Abstract

In our digital age, human social communication is increasingly mediated. However, mediated social communication (MSC) systems will only become a viable alternative for in-person social interactions when they reliably and intuitively convey all relevant social and spatial cues needed by communication partners to establish effective communication, collaboration, mutual understanding, and trust. A lot of research has been done on mediated communication in general, and on the effect of social cues in particular. However, this research typically focuses on particular social cues, investigating effects of implementations in particular situations. In addition, the research often focuses on answering psychological or cognitive questions. The translation to design questions such as functional and technical requirements is often left to the developers of the technical systems. This leaves a gap between psychological research results and a translation towards practical guidelines for designers and developers. This paper aims to make a first step towards guidelines for the implementation of social cues for social XR implementations.