Abstract
Many family members have a need to stay connected with their loved ones when they are separated by distance. Technologies such as the phone or email help achieve this to some extent, but, many people still feel out of touch with their loved ones. We designed two domestic media spaces—The Family Window and Family Portals—to help distributed family members connect with remote families’ homes using ‘always-on’ video connections. In addition to this, both systems allowed family members to interact using handwritten messaging. Our chapter focuses on this latter functionality to explore the ways in which family members made use of the inter-family messaging features found within our domestic media space systems. Here we discuss both synchronous and asynchronous messaging and the nuances of public vs. private messaging between households. We conclude with a discussion of implications for inter-family messaging systems.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Ames, M.G., Go, J., Kaye, J.J., Spasojevic, M. (2010). Making love in the network closet: the benefits and work of family videochat. ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work 2010 (pp. 145–154). New York: ACM.
Elliot, K., Neustaedter, C., Greenberg, S. (2007). StickySpots: using location to embed technology in the social practices of the home. ACM Conference on Tangible, Embodied and Embedded Interaction. New York: ACM.
Fass, A., Forlizzi, J., Pausch, R. (2001). MessyDesk and MessyBoard: two designs inspired by the goal of improving human memory. ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems 2001 (pp. 303–311). New York: ACM.
Harrison, S. (2009). Media Space: 20+ Years of Mediated Life. London: Springer.
Hindus, D., Mainwaring, S., Leduc, N., Hagstr, A., Bayley, O. (2001). Casablanca: designing social communication devices for the home. ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2001 (pp. 325–332). New York: ACM.
Hutchinson, H., Mackay, W., Westerlund, B., Bederson, B., Druin, A., Plaisant, C., Beaudouin-Lafon, M., Conversy, S., Evans, H., Hansen, H., Roussel, N., Eiderback, B. (2003). Technology probes: inspiring design for and with families. ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2001 (pp. 17–24).
Judge, T. K., & Neustaedter, C. (2010). Sharing conversation and sharing life: video conferencing in the home. ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2010 (pp. 655–658). New York: ACM.
Judge, T. K., Neustaedter, C., Kurtz, A. (2010). The family window: the design and evaluation of a domestic media space. ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2010 (pp. 2361–2370). New York: ACM.
Judge, T. K., Neustaedter, C., Harrison, S., Blose, A. (2011). Family portals: connecting families through a multifamily media space. ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2011. (pp. 1205–1214). New York: ACM.
Kirk, D.S., Sellen, A., Cao, X. (2010). Home video communication: mediating ‘closeness’. ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work 2010 (pp. 135–144). New York: ACM.
Lindley, S., Harper, R., Sellen, A. (2010). Designing a technological playground: a field study of the emergence of play in household messaging. ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2010 (pp. 2351–2360). New York: ACM.
Neustaedter, C., Elliot, K., Greenberg, S. (2006). Interpersonal awareness in the domestic realm. Australia Conference on Computer-Human Interaction (OzChi) 2006 (pp. 15–22). New York: ACM.
Neustaedter, C., Judge, T., Kurtz, A., Fedorovskaya, E. (2010). The family window: connecting families over distance with a domestic media space. Video Proceedings of the Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW 2010). New York: ACM.
O’Hara, K., Harper, R., Unger, A., Wilkes, J., Sharpe, B., Jansen, M.(2005). TxtBoard: from text-to-person to text-to-home. Proceedings of the Conference on Computer-Human Interaction (CHI 2005), Extended Abstracts. New York: ACM.
Romero, N., Markopoulos, P., Baren, J., Ruyter, B., Ijsselsteijn, W., Farshchian, B. (2007). Connecting the family with awareness systems. Personal Ubiquitous Computing, 11(3), 299–312.
Sellen, A., Harper, R., Eardley, R., Izadi, S, Regan, T., Taylor, A., Wood, K. (2006). Situated messaging for the home. ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW 2006). New York: ACM.
Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1998). Basics of qualitative research (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Tang, J., & Minneman, S. (1990). VideoDraw: a video interface for collaborative drawing. ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 1990 (pp. 313–320). New York: ACM.
Tang, J., & Minneman, S. (1991). VideoWhiteboard: video shadows to support remote collaboration. ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 1991 (pp. 315–322). New York: ACM.
Tee, K., Brush, A.J., Inkpen, K. (2009). Exploring communication and sharing between extended families. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 67(2), 128–138.
Acknowledgements
This research was graciously funded by Eastman Kodak Company. We are also very thankful for the help and support of researchers and management at Kodak Research Labs: Andrew Kurtz, Andrew Blose, Elena Fedorovskaya, and Rodney Miller. Lastly, we are indebted to the families who participated in our field deployments and spent many hours meeting and interacting with us. Without them, the research would not have been possible.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer-Verlag London
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Judge, T., Neustaedter, C., Harrison, S. (2013). Inter-Family Messaging with Domestic Media Spaces. In: Neustaedter, C., Harrison, S., Sellen, A. (eds) Connecting Families. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-4192-1_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-4192-1_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-4471-4191-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-4192-1
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)