Whispering Through Walls: Towards Inclusive Backchannel Communication in Hybrid Meetings

TY - GEN

T1 - Whispering Through Walls

T2 - CHI 2024 conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

AU - Mu, Qianqian

AU - Borowski, Marcel

AU - Grønbæk, Jens Emil

AU - Bødker, Susanne

AU - Hoggan, Eve

PY - 2024/5

Y1 - 2024/5

N2 - Backchannel communication, like whispering or instant messaging, is common in meetings and holds significant value. However, it remains largely unexplored in the context of hybrid meetings with co-located and remote participants. To address this gap, we derived unique challenges of backchannel communication in hybrid meetings through an interview study. These challenges inspired a new voice-based backchannel communication system, WhisperChannel, aimed to be inclusive and low effort. WhisperChannel enables users to whisper remotely to anyone in the meeting — similar to whispering to co-located seat neighbors. In a user study with three groups, each having two sessions of hybrid meetings, we investigated the inclusiveness and effort of WhisperChannel for both co-located and remote participants. We provide insights into the benefits and limitations of using remote whispering. We show that WhisperChannel helped remote and co-located participants feel more included while requiring low effort to use, however, also introduced new challenges in backchannel communication.

AB - Backchannel communication, like whispering or instant messaging, is common in meetings and holds significant value. However, it remains largely unexplored in the context of hybrid meetings with co-located and remote participants. To address this gap, we derived unique challenges of backchannel communication in hybrid meetings through an interview study. These challenges inspired a new voice-based backchannel communication system, WhisperChannel, aimed to be inclusive and low effort. WhisperChannel enables users to whisper remotely to anyone in the meeting — similar to whispering to co-located seat neighbors. In a user study with three groups, each having two sessions of hybrid meetings, we investigated the inclusiveness and effort of WhisperChannel for both co-located and remote participants. We provide insights into the benefits and limitations of using remote whispering. We show that WhisperChannel helped remote and co-located participants feel more included while requiring low effort to use, however, also introduced new challenges in backchannel communication.

KW - backchannel communication

KW - hybrid meetings

KW - virtual meetings

KW - whispering

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85190308254&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1145/3613904.3642419

DO - 10.1145/3613904.3642419

M3 - Article in proceedings

BT - CHI '24

PB - Association for Computing Machinery, Inc.

Y2 - 11 May 2024 through 16 May 2024

ER -