Family portals: connecting families through a multifamily media space

Video conferencing allows distance-separated family members to interact somewhat akin to being together at the same place and time. Yet most video conferencing systems are designed for phone-like calls between only two locations. Using such systems for long interactions or social gatherings with multiple families is cumbersome, if not impossible. For this reason, we wanted to explore how families would make use of a video system that permitted sharing everyday life over extended periods of time between multiple locations. We designed a media space called Family Portals that provides shared video between three locations and deployed it within the homes of six families. Results show that the media space increased feelings of connectedness and the focus on a triad, in contrast to a dyad, caused new styles of interaction to emerge. Despite this, families experienced new privacy challenges and non-adoption by some family members, not previously seen in dyadic family media spaces.

[1]  Sara A. Bly,et al.  Media spaces: bringing people together in a video, audio, and computing environment , 1993, CACM.

[2]  Carman Neustaedter,et al.  Sharing conversation and sharing life: video conferencing in the home , 2010, CHI.

[3]  Xiang Cao,et al.  Home video communication: mediating 'closeness' , 2010, CSCW '10.

[4]  Elizabeth D. Mynatt,et al.  Digital family portraits: supporting peace of mind for extended family members , 2001, CHI.

[5]  Morgan G. Ames,et al.  Making love in the network closet: the benefits and work of family videochat , 2010, CSCW '10.

[6]  Cliff Lampe,et al.  Changes in use and perception of facebook , 2008, CSCW.

[7]  Carman Neustaedter,et al.  Interpersonal awareness in the domestic realm , 2006, OZCHI.

[8]  Adam N. Joinson,et al.  Looking at, looking up or keeping up with people?: motives and use of facebook , 2008, CHI.

[9]  Saul Greenberg,et al.  Supporting social worlds with the community bar , 2005, GROUP.

[10]  Marilyn Tremaine,et al.  Experiences in the use of a media space , 1991, CHI.

[11]  Nikhil Komawar,et al.  Privacy Factors in Video-based Media Spaces , 2011 .

[12]  John L. Arnott,et al.  Using spatial cues to improve videoconferencing , 1992, CHI.

[13]  Wijnand A. IJsselsteijn,et al.  Connecting the family with awareness systems , 2007, Personal and Ubiquitous Computing.

[14]  Kori Inkpen Quinn,et al.  SPARCS: exploring sharing suggestions to enhance family connectedness , 2008, CSCW.

[15]  Sean Follmer,et al.  Family story play: reading with young children (and elmo) over a distance , 2010, CHI.

[16]  Carman Neustaedter,et al.  Blur filtration fails to preserve privacy for home-based video conferencing , 2006, TCHI.

[17]  Gregory D. Abowd,et al.  Developing a media space for remote synchronous parent-child interaction , 2009, IDC.

[18]  Kori Inkpen Quinn,et al.  Exploring communication and sharing between extended families , 2009, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud..

[19]  Abigail Sellen,et al.  Designing a technological playground: a field study of the emergence of play in household messaging , 2010, CHI.

[20]  Carman Neustaedter,et al.  The family window: the design and evaluation of a domestic media space , 2010, CHI.

[21]  Cliff Lampe,et al.  A face(book) in the crowd: social Searching vs. social browsing , 2006, CSCW '06.

[22]  Debby Hindus,et al.  Casablanca: designing social communication devices for the home , 2001, CHI 2001.

[23]  Paul Dourish,et al.  Portholes: supporting awareness in a distributed work group , 1992, CHI.

[24]  Allison Druin,et al.  Technology probes: inspiring design for and with families , 2003, CHI '03.

[25]  Louise Barkhuus,et al.  Student socialization in the age of facebook , 2010, CHI.

[26]  James L. Crowley,et al.  Early Experience with the Mediaspace CoMedi , 1998, EHCI.