Grand challenges for distributed mixed reality collaboration: a research agenda

Abstract

In this paper, the authors unpack one of the key promises of mixed reality (MR) – enabling distributed users to collaborate as if they were face-to-face, while each user’s interactions remain grounded in their physical reality. Decades of research have highlighted the expressive capabilities of MR, but the authors have still not solved the fundamental challenges to enable distributed team collaboration in a modern work context. To articulate these fundamentals, the authors outline a research agenda for MR interaction in modern distributed team collaboration. The authors present six grand challenges, based on tensions between principles of face-to-face interaction and the demands of modern work. To advance efforts, the authors take stock of state-of-the-art MR research related to each challenge and identify open research questions for human–computer interaction. The authors’ aim with this manuscript is to provide a future outlook for how to bring collaborative MR to where it is most needed in modern distributed teamwork.