Ever since the start of the Covid pandemic began affecting to everyone’s life and the society at large, Zoom, or other online communication tools such as Teams have become a part of our lives. No matter if we are having business meetings or communicating with families and friends abroad, these online communication tools bridge the gap in ways that the old-fashioned communication methods such as the phone and email couldn’t do. Despite those methods being quite good at helping us communicae, they did not do so in such a complete way as Zoom or Teams.

Since March 2020, we all face some kind of difficulties in different aspects in our lives. It could be the lockdowns causes different types of transportation frustrations. Now most of us need to meet business partners, colleagues or families in the digital realm. WIth the restrictions of social distancing, nearly everything else become physically-impossible.

Zoom or other tools are functional in most senses, from seeing the faces of your co-workers to listening to stereo quality audio. However, in terms of the psychological needs of users, this is the aspect Team C thinks that Zoom can be improved and become more accessible in the future.

Everyone has a life to deal with, no matter how big or small the issue is. However, meeting online with others can be stressful for some. Whether you are an introvert or a social butterfly, meeting others digitally can drain our energies much faster than physical meeting does. According to recent research, Zoom meetings are taxing our brain and many users suffer ‘Zoom fatigue’.

Who wants to sit in front of the computer and communicate all the time that way? Especially with people you never met in real life? In a working environment, for example, negative emotions of colleagues are sometimes inevitable, but we are not responsible for others’ emotional baggage if we have a lot on our plates. That is also what psychologists are here for. However, sometimes, people cannot discern the differences situationally. Some might let their negativity spread in the Zoom room. Unfortunately the audio is completely one-dimensional and flat. If someone takes over and does all the talking, everyone has to listen to that voice, while other voices in the room become harder to hear. In such a situation, it is even harder to make the Zoom meeting experience enjoyable, and we experience more mentally stress.

So, how can we keep our sanity during an important meeting and not to let others affect our peaceful state of mind? How can we focus on what matters the most while putting those noises aside? Zoom has no function for this particular issue. It is still not personable enough for users. We are drivers of our own lives, technology is supposed to help not make us feel worse.

This is where Ambisonic can be the potential to solve this problem.

During our MCT 4021 first session, we explored High Fidelity. It is an online immersive platform that allows us to socialise with 3D spatial sound and explore the location of others through auditory experience. The idea behind it is to illustrate the real-life situation, where the further the person stands from the microphone, the lower the volume of their voice. If someone stands right next to you, for sure, their voice is clearer and audible to you. If it is on the left? Or on the right. Ambisonic allows us to explore the sound distances in a digital environment. It has a huge potential to create a better user experience that feels ‘real’. For Virtual Reality(VR) is focusing majority on visual and spatial dimensions, why don’t we focus on audio as well?

The future possibilities for implementing ambisonic (3D spatial audio) in Zoom or other online communication tools are enormous. In the meanwhile, if developed carefully, it could be a tool that nurtures our psychological needs.

During the ambisonic workshop we had tried to set up the aggregated devices and different settings in Reaper, Zoom and audio midi. This section aimed to test out if that kind of ‘room’ mode has positive future potential for better user experience in Zoom meetings.

MCT4021 Ambisonic workshops:

In the ambisonic session with 13 participants, approximately ⅔ Mac users and ⅓ Windows users. We followed an instruction video given by the tutors. We ran on the stereo and configured setups without fully reaching our expectations for the session. It seems like the ideal future of Zoom meeting to implement ambisonic audio is merging aggregated devices and routing through Reaper to Zoom. The setup successful rates were around 50%. In Team C, we discovered the reason why the setting didn’t work after class. In our personal Zoom account, under the audio section, there is an option for us to enable, this is where we can allow the Reaper and aggregate device settings to perform in our Zoom.

Impression:

It could be an interesting idea and is fun, however, what is its practical application?. Imagine if we are in a serious business meeting, why would we need such an effect? Why do we need to mess around in the 3D spatial audio? Who has the time to do this unless they are interested in the sound field?

((I((Joni here)) think the reason it is useful is because it lets the mind use less effort in determining the location of people in the virtual space. I imagine that having six floating voices is not a natural condition whereas we have cognitive systems evolved to place people in the space we share. Mobile ‘phone users in cars use too much brain power while talking compared to drivers chatting with a person in the car)).

Purpose of this:

So, if we create meaning with this feature, it becomes a possibility for our mental health well-being. As we said earlier, it could be a tool for users to control the audio input of colleagues in a large-scale meeting.

Potential Jamulus supplement?

In the 2 Jamulus sessions we had in the MCT 4021, we also tried to combine with Zoom. We tried to test out how we could make music-making online more real as in the physical world. However, during the Team C sessions, the flute was too loud and drowned out the other instruments, despite the fact there were settings in the Jamulus server in which we could turn the volume down. The one-dimensional, flat audio outputs in our computer meant the experience was not so enjoyable. If Ambisonic applies in this situation, it allows us to control the distances of a sound source, it seems possible to enhance the future Jamulus-Zoom experience.

High Fidelity on Zoom?

In the first session as we mentioned earlier, High Fidelity (HF) was a fun tool for us to socialise with sound. If this platform emerges in Zoom directly, we can envision our ‘main Zoom room’, where we see all our co-workers at once. With HF here, we can imagine to move or scale the size of the co-workers, in the meanwhile, scale their voices and volume around. It is possible to enhance the user experience. However, first and foremost, we need to test further with more users. It is rather subjective if we make any judgement here.

An idea for the future Zoom meeting room

The idea creating a virtual meeting table in the Zoom, it allows us to choose where we sit in the room. In the meanwhile, it gives flexibility that we can move the other participants around. The further we move the participant, the less we can hear their voice. This is an idea of mimicking the real-life meeting situation.

Finally, ambisonic is possible to create meaningful experience in Zoom in terms of our psychological needs.