  Amid current social distancing measures requiring people to work from home,
there has been renewed interest on how to effectively converse and collaborate
remotely utilizing currently available technologies. On the surface, VR
provides a perfect platform for effective remote communication. It can transfer
contextual and environmental cues and facilitate a shared perspective while
also allowing people to be virtually co-located. Yet we argue that currently VR
is not adequately designed for such a communicative purpose. In this paper, we
outline three key barriers to using VR for conversational activity : (1)
variability of social immersion, (2) unclear user roles, and (3) the need for
effective shared visual reference. Based on this outline, key design topics are
discussed through a user experience design perspective for considerations in a
future collaborative design framework.
