Belonging There: VROOM-ing into the Uncanny Valley of XR Telepresence

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The world is entering a new normal of hybrid organizations, in which it will be very common that some members are co-located and others are remote. Hybridity is rife with asymmetries that effect our sense of belonging in an organizational space. This paper reports a study of an XR telepresence technology probe to explore how remote workers might present and be perceived as an equal and unique embodied being in a workplace. VROOM (Virtual Robotic Overlay for Online Meetings) augments a standard Mobile Robotic Telepresence experience by (1) adding a virtual avatar overlay of the remote person to the local space, viewable through a HoloLens worn by the local user, through which the remote user can gesture and express themselves, and (2) giving the remote user an immersive 360° view of the local space, captured by a 360° camera on the robot, which they can view through a VR headset. We ran a controlled experiment to understand how pairs of participants (one local and one remote) collaborate using VROOM in a search game and word-guessing game. Our findings illustrate that there is much potential for a system like VROOM to support dynamic collaborative activities in which embodiment, gesturing, mobility, spatial awareness, and non-verbal expressions are important. However, there are also challenges to be addressed, specifically around proprioception, the mixing of a physical robot body with a virtual human avatar, uncertainties of others' views and capabilities, fidelity of expressions, and the appearance of the avatar. We conclude with further design suggestions and recommendations for future work.