An empirical study on enhancing presence in telecommunication environment: with a focus on augmented reality

Abstract

How much the media reflects humans and society has been a key issue to many scholars, since the studies on communication began. Over the course of such studies, ‘reality experience’ gained through technology emerged as a key issue of traditional mass communication and new computer-mediated communication.The aim of this study is to investigate the most proper telecommunication system in virtual environment. This study’s methodology is based on designing considered technical concept as well as theoretical validity related to a concept of presence. This study suggests three principles for the most proper designing of augmented reality-based telecommunicationsystem. Although physical, psychological and media characteristics affect interpersonal communication, previous works did not consider these aspects and has limitations. Therefore, I considered theoretical concepts related to presence as well as media characteristics what augmented reality is. Principles for maximizing a sense of presence were founded for understanding the full potential of augmented reality to telecommunication experience. The following user experiment was conducted for evaluating the augmented reality-based telecommunication system. An experiment focused on how many users can feel a sense of presence when they communicate spontaneously on two conditions; traditional two dimensions display-based telecommunication and augmented reality-based telecommunication system I developed. This study’s methodology for user evaluation follow user centered design’s methodology. That is, I researched concretely what they talk, how they behave, how they can feel and what they make. Then, I analyzed how much different is betweentwo telecommunication system. Therefore, this study analyzed user’s data on four aspects. As a result, although the participants experienced more difficulties in carrying out the tasks in ARbased telecommunication environment, they felt a sense of presence in AR-based telecommunication...