Collaborating & being together: influence of screen size and viewing distance during video communication

Through videoconferencing, people search to interact and communicate with their remote friends or family as they were together in the same place. The influence of form variables such as screen size has been mainly investigated on the sense of physical presence (presence as transportation) in virtual environment and in television area, but less attention has been paid to how these factors can influence the sense of co-presence in videoconferencing. In addition, preferred viewing distance is well known to be a key parameter in order to convey a sense of presence and enjoyment when people watch television, but there is currently no data regarding preferred viewing distance in videoconferencing. This paper presents a user study which explores the influence of screen size on the participant's sense of co-presence and on their preferred viewing distance. The main results of this study revealed that users preferred to get closer to the screen when they communicated in videoconferencing than when they watched TV program. Our study suggests that screen size has an effect on the preferred viewing distance and on the participant's sense of co-presence, with higher scores of co-presence with larger screen.