Behind the Curtains: Comparing Mozilla Hubs with Microsoft Teams in a Guided Virtual Theatre Experience
Jüergen Hagler, Michael Lankes, Nils Gallist
Abstract
This paper examines the perceived social presence experienced in social virtual environments (Mozilla Hubs) in a theatre context compared to video-based meeting platforms (MS Teams). To achieve this, we carried out a comparative study, designed a concept for a guided tour, recreated a theatre stage in a virtual reality environment, and granted students access to this stage as a replacement for visiting the location in person. Results show only minor differences between the conditions, which can be attributed to the difficult navigation control scheme provided by the devices (e.g., tablets, smartphones) and the lack of compelling onboarding features. Nonetheless, the proposed submission identifies design potentials of virtual social environments and offers insights into how the examined efforts are perceived both by the guides and students.