Bridging Gaps: Affective Communication in Long Distance Relationships

1. Bridging Gaps: AffectiveCommunication in Long DistanceRelationships Shruti Bhandari Indiana University School of Informatics 901 E. 10th Street Bloomington, IN 47408, USA sbhandar@indiana.edu Shaowen Bardzell Indiana University School of Informatics 901 E. 10th Street Bloomington, IN 47408, USA selu@indiana.edu CHI 2008 Proceedings · Works In Progress

2. Outline • Introduction • User Research • Initial Findings • Design Concepts • Future Work

3. Introduction • Communication is used by non- collocatedcouples to exchange factual information as well as to express their emotions to each other.

4. User Research • eight people • two were married • two were international students • Three of the participants are presently collocated though they had lived away from their partners in the past. • relationship period:1 to 9 years • two female & six male participants • Subjects:heterosexual relationship

5. Initial Findings • Spent a good part of day communicating or special time • cell phone • Instant Messaging(IM) • Surprise Messages

6. Design Concepts • 1) MatchUs Board: • 2) Together Aquarium: • 3) CanCan: • 4) Audible Gifts:

7. Diamond Touch

8. MatchUs Board

9. Together Aquarium

10. CanCan

11. Audible Gifts

12. Future Work • Creating shared experiences and promoting situational awareness • Extensive usability evaluation of our design concepts