Emotional Communication between Remote Couples: Exploring the Design of Wearable Ambient Displays

We explore the potential of limited vocabulary wearable ambient displays and their preferred characteristics in communicating intimacy between couples at a distance. The research comprises two studies: a co-design workshop and a field study of the design concepts generated from the co-design workshops using low-fidelity prototypes. Our findings reveal that wearable ambient displays could potentially help to increase awareness and emotional connections between couples. A limited vocabulary display is considered as a complementary channel to a smartphone, supporting the communication of subtle and lightweight messages that the sender does not necessarily expect a response to. From the user studies, we identify the preferred characteristics, as well as the potential and challenges of low vocabulary wearable ambient displays.

[1]  Antti Oulasvirta,et al.  Habits make smartphone use more pervasive , 2011, Personal and Ubiquitous Computing.

[2]  Jennifer Pearson,et al.  It's About Time: Smartwatches as Public Displays , 2015, CHI.

[3]  Martin R. Gibbs,et al.  Mediating intimacy: designing technologies to support strong-tie relationships , 2005, CHI.

[4]  Leon Sterling,et al.  The Art of Agent-Oriented Modeling , 2009 .

[5]  Sunny Consolvo,et al.  Using the Experience Sampling Method to Evaluate Ubicomp Applications , 2003, IEEE Pervasive Comput..

[6]  Florian Alt,et al.  Using on-body displays for extending the output of wearable devices , 2016, PerDis.

[7]  Chris Harrison,et al.  Where to locate wearable displays?: reaction time performance of visual alerts from tip to toe , 2009, CHI.

[8]  V. Braun,et al.  Using thematic analysis in psychology , 2006 .

[9]  Marilyn Tremaine.  CHI '01 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems , 2001, CHI Extended Abstracts.

[10]  Paul Johns,et al.  BioCrystal: An Ambient Tool for Emotion and Communication , 2015, Int. J. Mob. Hum. Comput. Interact..

[11]  Sarah Diefenbach,et al.  All You Need is Love: Current Strategies of Mediating Intimate Relationships through Technology , 2012, TCHI.

[12]  John C. McCarthy,et al.  Technology as experience , 2004, INTR.

[13]  John T. Stasko,et al.  A taxonomy of ambient information systems: four patterns of design , 2006, AVI '06.

[14]  Matt Jones,et al.  Pico-ing into the future of mobile projection and contexts , 2011, Personal and Ubiquitous Computing.

[15]  Hong Li,et al.  Review of unconventional user interfaces for emotional communication between long-distance partners , 2018, MobileHCI.

[16]  Carman Neustaedter,et al.  Flex-N-Feel: The Design and Evaluation of Emotive Gloves for Couples to Support Touch Over Distance , 2017, CSCW.

[17]  Carman Neustaedter,et al.  Intimacy in long-distance relationships over video chat , 2012, CHI.

[18]  Hiroshi Ishii,et al.  LumiTouch: an emotional communication device , 2001, CHI Extended Abstracts.

[19]  Hong Li,et al.  Idle stripes shirt: ambient wearable display for activity tracking , 2018, UbiComp.

[20]  John Zimmerman,et al.  Research through design as a method for interaction design research in HCI , 2007, CHI.

[21]  Sandy Gould,et al.  Repurposing Emoji for Personalised Communication: Why 🍕 means “I love you” , 2018, CHI.

[22]  Carman Neustaedter,et al.  "MyEyes": The Design and Evaluation of First Person View Video Streaming for Long-Distance Couples , 2017, Conference on Designing Interactive Systems.

[23]  Rain Ashford.  An Exploration of Responsive and Emotive Wearables through Research Prototyping , 2019, CHI Extended Abstracts.

[24]  Masahiko Inami,et al.  Emotional priming of mobile text messages with ring-shaped wearable device using color lighting and tactile expressions , 2014, AH.

[25]  Susanne Boll,et al.  Real-life experiences with an adaptive light bracelet , 2015, BCS HCI.

[26]  Anind K. Dey,et al.  Is Context-Aware Computing Taking Control away from the User? Three Levels of Interactivity Examined , 2003, UbiComp.

[27]  Joseph Kaye,et al.  I just clicked to say I love you: rich evaluations of minimal communication , 2006, CHI Extended Abstracts.

[28]  Yvonne Rogers,et al.  Why It's Worth the Hassle: The Value of In-Situ Studies When Designing Ubicomp , 2007, UbiComp.

[29]  Eric Paulos,et al.  AlterWear: Battery-Free Wearable Displays for Opportunistic Interactions , 2018, CHI.