'It's More Like a Letter'

Abstract

Communication technologies for maintaining close personal relationships are often designed to be lightweight and easy to use. While these properties allow for relationships to be maintained with speed and efficiency, they may come at the expense of more effortful messages that are constructed with thought, time and care. This raises the question of how communication technologies might be designed to provoke moments of effortful maintenance from their users. To explore this question, we designed and implemented Message Builder, a text-based communication system that encourages relational partners to send increasingly long messages. We report findings from a field trial in which 14 dyads used Message Builder for everyday relational maintenance. While some of the effort-provoking features of Message Builder were described as problematic, we found that the system had value in guiding users towards authentic and meaningful effort investments that were valuable within their individual relationships. CCS Concepts: • Human-centered computing → Collaborative and social computing theory, concepts and paradigms; Social media; Collaborative and social computing devices;

Avatar-Mediated Communication in Social VR: An In-depth Exploration of Older Adult Interaction in an Emerging Communication Platform

“…In the first cycle, the participants took part in a series of workshops that were designed to familiarise them with VR and the use of avatars. This culminated in a workshop where they trialled a basic social VR prototype that allowed them to control embodied avatars via a Microsoft Kinect sensor [3]. In the second cycle, a subset of the same group of participants were involved in the participatory design of a social VR application concept [5] that was used as the basis for the prototype that was developed for the user study [2].…”

“…We are aware of only one study that has considered AMC in social VR. Baker and colleagues [3] report on a study that saw 25 older adults aged between 70 and 81 engage in a social VR prototype that allowed groups of four people to visit a virtual island and engage in conversation. Results from this study showed that while the participants saw great potential for AMC in social VR to be used as a tool to address social isolation, several factors impacted on their ability to feel socially engaged during the study.…”

“…Older adults' evaluations of these systems have identified that although AMC in virtual worlds could be useful for social interaction, issues such as a lack of nonverbal cues were perceived to limit the usefulness of 3D avatars for communication [13,30,38]. Baker and colleagues conducted a short-term evaluation of a prototype social VR system that allowed groups of older adults to meet and communicate on a virtual island [3]. While the participants in their study agreed that AMC in social VR had potential as a communication tool, body tracking errors and a lack of behavioural anthropomorphism -an avatar's ability to act in a human-like manner -acted as significant barriers to communication.…”

“…While the participants in their study agreed that AMC in social VR had potential as a communication tool, body tracking errors and a lack of behavioural anthropomorphism -an avatar's ability to act in a human-like manner -acted as significant barriers to communication. In the system described in this paper, we address these challenges by incorporating measures aimed at improving the sense of presence in the virtual environment and strengthening the connection between the older user and their avatar using features recommended by Baker and colleagues [3]. We also responded to prior work that has called for longer term evaluations of VR systems aimed at older users [43], by using a participatory methodology that supported older adults to play a more central role in evaluating the prototype and adopting an expanded study timeline so that our participants would have time to fully evaluate the prototype.…”

“…Our participants also articulated how some of the unique characteristics of avatars might be used to enhance communication in certain circumstances, and how AMC in social VR addresses problems associated with divided attention that impact on videoconferencing platforms. Finally, as our prototype implemented recommendations from earlier work by Baker and colleagues [3] aimed at increasing the behavioural anthropomorphism of avatars in social VR, we examine our participants' reactions to these and consider how these can be used to further improve the design of future social VR systems aimed at older users. In responding to our research question, we contribute six design reflections that speak to how the insights gained from the user study can be used to inform future design and research into older adults use of AMC in social VR.…”