currentform | Simon King, Interaction Designer
My research poster (33 in. x 47 in.) discusses the first phase of my thesis project including research synthesis and analysis.
To begin, I plotted relevant projects from design, HCI, and communication fields in order to find unexplored opportunities.
Twenty-two interviews were conducted with people currently in long-distance relationships spanning the globe.
Five interviewees recruited their remote partners to participate in an eight-day questionnaire and photo journal.
Data from the interviews were clustered and analyzed to expose thematic groupings of needs and desires.
I found that certain aspects of the relationship where consistently lost when all communication is mediated by technology.
Couples living at a distance experience “presence in absence” in various ways. I plan to focus on the right side of this matrix.
Communication through phone calls, email, and text messages are essential to maintaining a long-distance relationship.
The physical objects that couples send each other embody the time and effort they took and act as symbols of the relationship.
Presence in absence happens even without direct communication, trigged by memories and shared experiences.
Slow Messaging
Description
Information technology increasingly mediates communication between people, particularly when they live at a distance. For couples in long-distance relationships these technologies are a primary means of exchanging not only information but also emotions. This project explores the communication needs of couples living at a distance to design an intimate and emotional means of interaction specifically for this context.
Slow Messaging is my graduate thesis project, currently in progress. Shown here are results from the research phase, which included a literature and project review, twenty-two personal interviews, and an eight-day web questionnaire and photo journal with five couples. Findings were analyzed to create a general model of presence in absence and inform the forthcoming design phase.
The research poster explains my process and findings for the first stage and was presented in December 2006 at Carnegie Mellon University. The final thesis presentation will be held in May 2007.
Downloads
- Research Poster [1.4MB PDF]