Designing for Effective Collaboration Experiences in Virtual Worlds
Andreas Schmeil, Béatrice S. Hasler · 2012
Teams and groups that meet in 3D virtual worlds to work or learn together choose the medium for its distinct features and advantages over other online media. While these advantages are often mentioned by the academic and educational communities, empirical evidence is rare. In this paper we present an extensive empirical study of collaboration in virtual worlds, investigating the design of environment and activities. Our mixed-methods analysis yields new insights on the effective design of collaboration experiences. Based on the findings, we present a set of guidelines for the design of collaboration in virtual worlds and discuss the implications for the design of collaboration in general.