Facilitating parent-teenager communication through interactive photo cubes

Abstract

Because most teenagers strive for freedom and try to live autonomously, communication with their parents could be improved. It appeared from a literature review and a diary study that parent-teenager communication primarily addresses teenager-oriented everyday activities. However, it also showed teenagers have a substantial interest in getting to know their parents and their parents' past. The study described in this paper seeks to address this opportunity by designing a product for parents and teenagers that facilitates communication about the past of the parents. The resulting design, called Cueb, is a set of interactive digital photo cubes with which parents and teenagers can explore individual and shared experiences and are triggered to exchange stories. An evaluation of a prototype of Cueb with four families showed that the participants felt significantly more triggered and supported to share their experiences and tell stories with Cueb's full functionality (connecting cubes, switching, and locking photographs) than with limited functionality (shaking to display random photographs), similar to more traditional photo media.

Towards a more cherishable digital object

“…For most hybrid objects, however, the physical is primarily a carrier of the digital content and the physical component is optimized to the use of the digital, for example a big screen on a smartphone optimizes web browsing. Interesting possibilities for new forms of meaningful integration of physical and digital can be considered by looking beyond the physical as mere container for the digital and by exploiting the advantages of the physical for this integration, for example by using physical interaction mechanisms, as was done in Cueb, a set of interactive digital photo cubes [8], or by enhancing uniqueness or craftsmanship. This could in turn lead to digital objects, or combinations of physical and digital, that are more cherished.…”

Storytelling with Objects to Explore Digital Archives

“…Objects can serve as "entry points" to stories by triggering memories [14] which become the starting point of a conversation [11]. In a social context objects can also support collaborative storytelling -different people can contribute to selecting and arranging objects while telling a story.…”

“…In 4Photos [3] and Cueb [11] the structure of the story is not represented externally and rather than relying on a pre-authored story the story emerges from social interactions between the participants of a conversation and photos displayed by a device. As a centerpiece 4Photos [3] becomes part of the conversation around the dinner table.…”

“…A random selection of photos from a subset becomes the starting point of new conversations some of which are about topics which would not usually be discussed. In Cueb [11] the random display of photos serves as a facilitator of social communication. Cueb displays photos from both parents' and teenagers' lives.…”

“…A trigger or cue is a "piece of information, a piece of mind, or an experience" [14] which facilitates memory retrieval, "bringing to consciousness an unconscious state" [14] and aiding memory to retrieve details which are not remembered otherwise. A cue can trigger a memory which a family member then communicates about [11].…”