Hasta La Ideas

Videochats have become indispensable for businesses, but they’re no substitute for a face-to-face meeting. The lack of accurate eye contact is jarring, and it’s a lot harder to read visual cues when staring at a tiny head in a laptop screen. Additionally, Steelcase learned during user research, people find videoconferencing mentally exhausting.

“People need better hybrid collaboration options — especially in a time where we are spending so much of our day on video — so we wanted to create a more realistic experience that would help combat digital fatigue,” says Steelcase’s Christina Vernon, general manager of distributed collaboration and tech partners. “Project Ghost was an experiment to see if people could connect virtually in the same way they might over a cup of coffee. What we found through all of our conversations and in-person demonstrations was that people were craving this kind of immersive and distraction-free experience to really improve their connections with their colleagues.”

Project Ghost, which was undertaken in collaboration with Logitech, was a trial to see if the companies could jointly create a better videoconferencing experience. The project’s experimental prototypes have grown into a finished product, Ocular View.

This dedicated videoconferencing booth seats two and, the companies reckon, provides multiple advantages over computer-based Zooms:

Ocular View includes a comfortable lounge, small table and soft lighting to help participants look and feel their best. The space was intentionally designed to eliminate distractions, placing the technology secondary to the physical environment. Participants simply tap to join to start the realistic conversation.

[The system uses] an effect that removes the remote participant from their background and displays a life-size rendering. The camera also creates eye-to-eye contact by connecting sight lines to create a natural gaze, so people feel as though they are engaging in-person.

“When starting on this project, we asked ourselves how we could create a more human connection where technology fades into the background and people are front-and-center,” says Alex Mooney, Logitech manager. The goal was to remove “the obvious presence of technology to focus on the engagement between two people.”

The units come in three different footprints, including a wheelchair-accessible one, and you can spec a variety of panel options. You can learn more here.