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

Hong Li, Pradthana Jarusriboonchai, Heiko Müller, Emmi Harjuniemi, Jonna Häkkilä

NordiCHI ’20: Proceedings of the 11th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction: Shaping Experiences, Shaping Society, October 2020.

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.

Li, H., Jarusriboonchai, P., Müller, H., Harjuniemi, E., & Häkkilä, J. (2020, October). Emotional Communication between Remote Couples: Exploring the Design of Wearable Ambient Displays. In Proceedings of the 11th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction: Shaping Experiences, Shaping Society (pp. 1-5).