MagHeart: Exploring Playful Avatar Co-Creation and Shared Heartbeats for Icebreaking in Hybrid Meetings

TL;DR

MagHeart, a multimodal system that explores symmetric icebreaking in hybrid meetings through playful LEGO-based avatar co-creation and a tangible magnetic device that represents a remote participant's heartbeat as an ambient presence cue, is presented.

Abstract

Hybrid meetings often begin with social awkwardness and asymmetric participation, particularly for remote attendees who lack access to informal, co-present interaction. We present MagHeart, a multimodal system that explores symmetric icebreaking in hybrid meetings through playful LEGO-based avatar co-creation and a tangible magnetic device that represents a remote participant's heartbeat as an ambient presence cue. By combining creative co-creation with abstract bio-feedback, MagHeart rethinks how remote participants can become materially and perceptually present during meeting openings. We report findings from a scenario-based exploratory study combining quantitative and qualitative data, examining participants' anticipated engagement, perceived social presence, and future-use intentions from both co-located and remote perspectives. Our results highlight opportunities for playful, embodied icebreakers to support early hybrid interaction, while also surfacing tensions around privacy, distraction, and contextual appropriateness. This work contributes design insights and open questions for future hybrid meeting tools that balance playfulness, embodiment, and social sensitivity.

Figures (4)

• Figure 1: MagHeart physical display. (a) Exploded view of the device components, including the MDF base enclosure with an embedded electromagnet, a transparent cast acrylic top surface with a circular aperture, and a PETG-based cylindrical top object containing a permanent magnet. (b) A co-located user holds the permanent magnet to feel the remote user's pulse. (c) Assembled configuration with the LEGO figurine placed on the base.
• Figure 2: Main screens of the MagHeart App. In the Shared Context Setup Screens , the co-located participant selects a first-round prompt card, which is shown to the remote participant for response( upper). A persistent heart-rate indicator (b) remains visible throughout the interaction by clicking the " " button. Each response is recorded as a preference tag (c), forming part of the shared context. The second-round random cards operate in the same way( bottom). In the Co-Creation Screen , all collected tags appear as shared context . The remote participant shares their building process through a blurred preview , which lets the co-located side sense ongoing activity without revealing detail. Both sides indicate progress using the complete button . When finished. In the Showcase Screen , the system presents the remote participant’s digital figure alongside the co-located group’s physical build, enabling comparison and discussion before finalizing the shared design.
• Figure 3: Pre–post comparisons of participants’ anticipated experiences in hybrid meetings before (Pre) and after the MagHeart scenario (Post), measured on 7-point Likert scales (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree; error bars indicate standard errors). (a) Co-located perspective. (b) Remote perspective. Asterisks indicate statistical significance (** p < .01, *** p < .001).
• Figure 4: Distribution of participants’ post-scenario ratings for perceived social presence and future-use intention after the MagHeart condition. (a) Co-located perspective. (b) Remote perspective. Violin plots show rating distributions with overlaid medians and interquartile ranges.