Virtual Visits: UX Evaluation of a Photorealistic AR-based Video Communication Tool

Social communication is increasingly performed through video communication (VC) tools such as Teams or Zoom. Although VC is an effective way to maintain relationships remotely, it is still limited in creating a sense of social connectedness since the interaction does not feel as natural as a physical encounter. We evaluated the user experience of a new photorealistic VC tool based on augmented reality (AR) compared with a popular VC tool (MS Teams), focusing on the feeling of social presence they provide. Participants experienced one of the systems and answered a questionnaire about their experience. In the AR condition, participants perceived a 3D image of the remote person projected in their local background (Fig.1). In the "regular video call" condition, using MS Teams, participants perceived a 2D image of the remote person in the remote background. The variables measured were social presence, interpersonal closeness, global user experience, duration of calls and perception of time, behaviour, and attitude toward the AR tool. No significant differences were found in subjective measures of social presence, interpersonal closeness, and global UX. There were also no significant differences in the duration of calls or time perception per condition. However, behavioural analysis showed that with the AR tool participants used significantly more hand gestures (non-verbal communication), showed a more relaxed attitude and laughed more frequently. Although we did not find any evidence that it provides more social presence, the AR communication tool appears to induce more natural behaviour. Both conditions received high scores on social presence and global UX. Qualitative analysis of open questions and comments showed that the human-sized image of the communication partner was the main factor driving these scores and suggested improvements for future system design.