Communication in Immersive Social Virtual Reality: A Systematic Review of 10 Years' Studies

TL;DR

This systematic review analyzes a decade of research on communication in social virtual reality, highlighting current practices, challenges, and opportunities for improving design and accessibility.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive summary of how VR has been used for communication over ten years and offers guidance for designing more effective social VR applications.

Findings

Identified key practices in social VR communication

Highlighted challenges in accessibility and design

Suggested research directions for future improvements

Abstract

As virtual reality (VR) technologies have improved in the past decade, more research has investigated how they could support more effective communication in various contexts to improve collaboration and social connectedness. However, there was no literature to summarize the uniqueness VR provided and put forward guidance for designing social VR applications for better communication. To understand how VR has been designed and used to facilitate communication in different contexts, we conducted a systematic review of the studies investigating communication in social VR in the past ten years by following the PRISMA guidelines. We highlight current practices and challenges and identify research opportunities to improve the design of social VR to better support communication and make social VR more accessible.