The Impact of Avatar Fidelity on Virtual Reality Brainstorming and Room Design Evaluation

Abstract

Multi-User Virtual Reality has potential applications for prototyping environments, but questions still exist about how user representations influence brainstorming and evaluation activities. Improvements in avatar fidelity have led towards avatar realism being more commonplace, but priming from avatars may influence users to behave differently. This study examines the differences in brainstorming activities between High and Low states of Avatar Fidelity while in Multi-User VR workspaces. Using kitchens as a workspace everyone has worked in and can comment on, groups of participants went through sets of kitchen prototypes and came up with Pros, Cons, and Recommendations for each. Participants were given surveys where they reported information about team dynamics, perceptions of the environments evaluated, behaviors while brainstorming, and environmental preferences. After performing the study, significant quantitative differences were not found regarding current state of Avatar Fidelity using paired t-tests. However, exploratory analyses using independent t-tests for each Room Set found significant differences in team dynamics and behaviors while brainstorming between those starting in High Fidelity and Low Fidelity. Additionally, qualitative analyses of observations and open ended questions indicated differences in focus relating to stylization, appliances, and environmental interactivity. These variations might be contextually relevant for different use cases of brainstorming in Multi-User Virtual Reality.