One LED is Enough: Catalyzing Face-to-face Interactions at Conferences with a Gentle Nudge

Face-to-face social interactions among strangers today are becoming increasingly rare as people turn towards computer-mediated networking tools. Today's tools, however, are based on the following assumptions: increased information encourages interaction, profiles are good representations of users to other users, and computer-mediated communications prior to face-to-face meetings lead to better outcomes. This paper describes CommonTies, a gentle technological in the form of a wearable accessory, that encourages immediate, face-to-face, organic social interactions among strangers at conferences. By not exposing any profile information, CommonTies preserves an element of mystery and enables self-disclosure of information through conversation. We evaluate our system through a field study at a three-day research conference - CSCW 2014. We find that despite our information-scarce design, users were willing to interact with strangers and 74% of the interactions initiated by CommonTies were reported as novel and useful.

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