(Re)Configuring Hybrid Meetings: Moving from User-Centered Design to Meeting-Centered Design

Abstract

Despite sophisticated technologies for representational fidelity in hybrid meetings, in which co-located and remote participants collaborate via video or audio, meetings are still often disrupted by practical problems with trying to include remote participants. In this paper, we use micro-analysis of three disruptive moments in a hybrid meeting from a global software company to unpack blended technological and conversational practices of inclusion and exclusion. We argue that designing truly valuable experiences for hybrid meetings requires moving from the traditional, essentialist, and perception-obsessed user-centered design approach to a phenomenological approach to the needs of meetings themselves. We employ the metaphor of ‘configuring the meeting’ to propose that complex ecologies of people, technology, spatial, and institutional organization must be made relevant in the process of design.

Business meetings in a postpandemic world: When and how to meet virtually

“…When hybrid meetings are necessary, some additional considerations can help ( Cichomska et al., 2015 ; Reed & Allen, 2022 ; Saatçi et al., 2020 ). For instance, meetings in which some participants are colocated face-to-face while others employ high-end videoconferencing require two-way interaction using visual cues, audio, and screen-sharing.…”

Means and Meanings of Research Collaboration in the Face of a Suffering Earth: A Landscape of Questions

“…However, as much research within socio-material approaches and computer-supported collaborative work (CSCW) has shown, achievements such as this requires a host of sociotechnical issues to have settled: technology choices, technical protocols for the processors to communicate with each other, people to oversee and maintain the technologies, money to buy licences, network capacity, a reliable electricity supply and so on. (For an early classic and a summary of general problems in video communication, see Heath and Luff's (1992) study of video meetings; for a recent paper including a concise summary of relevant findings in the field of CSCW, see Saatçi et al 2020. For an impression of some socio-material approaches generally, see e.g.…”

"Seeing the Faces Is So Important" -- Experiences From Online Team Meetings on Commercial Virtual Reality Platforms

“…We urge interaction designers to create systems that prevent users from awkward appearance or behavior by accident, e.g., while taking off equipment or when sitting down and standing up. Further, until a common "VRtiquette" (Lahlou et al, 2021) is established over the years, the attendees should agree on common rules and conventions that might be supported by regulations from the organization -in the same way as video conferencing and hybrid meetings benefit from this (Saatc ¸i et al, 2020).…”