Ryan Kelly
Daniel Gooch
Leon Watts
Skip Abstract Section
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.
- Sara B. Algoe, Shelly L. Gable, and Natalya C. Maisel. 2010. It's the little things: Everyday gratitude as a booster shot for romantic relationships. Personal relationships 17, 2 (2010), 217--233.Google Scholar
- Nazanin Andalibi, Frank Bentley, and Katie Quehl. 2017. Multi-channel topic-based mobile messaging in romantic relationships. Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. 1, CSCW, Article 20 (Dec. 2017), 18 pages. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Ellen Berscheid, Mark Snyder, and Allen M. Omoto. 1989. The Relationship Closeness Inventory: Assessing the closeness of interpersonal relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 57, 5 (1989), 792.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Stacy Branham and Steve Harrison. 2013. Designing for Collocated Couples. Springer London, London, 15--36.Google Scholar
- Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke. 2006. Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology 3, 2 (2006), 77--101.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Moira Burke and Robert E. Kraut. 2016. The relationship between Facebook use and well-being depends on communication type and tie strength. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 21, 4 (2016), 265--281. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Moira Burke, Robert E. Kraut, and Cameron Marlow. 2011. Social capital on Facebook: Differentiating uses and users. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '11). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 571--580. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Daniel J. Canary, Laura Stafford, Kimberley S. Hause, and Lisa A. Wallace. 1993. An inductive analysis of relational maintenance strategies: Comparisons among lovers, relatives, friends, and others. Communication Research Reports 10, 1 (1993), 3--14.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Andy Cockburn, Per Ola Kristensson, Jason Alexander, and Shumin Zhai. 2007. Hard lessons: Effort-inducing interfaces benefit spatial learning. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '07). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1571--1580. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Franois Coderre, Anne Mathieu, and Natalie St-Laurent. 2004. Comparison of the quality of qualitative data obtained through telephone, postal and email surveys. International Journal of Market Research 46, 3 (2004), 349--357.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Reed Larson. 2014. Validity and reliability of the experience-sampling method. In Flow and the foundations of positive psychology. Springer, 35--54.Google Scholar
- Carolyn Folkman Curasi. 2001. A critical exploration of face-to-face interviewing vs. computer-mediated interviewing. International Journal of Market Research 43, 4 (2001), 1--13.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Marianne Dainton and Brooks Aylor. 2002. Routine and strategic maintenance efforts: Behavioral patterns, variations associated with relational length, and the prediction of relational characteristics. Communication Monographs 69, 1 (2002), 52--66.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Jayson L. Dibble, Timothy R. Levine, and Hee Sun Park. 2012. The Unidimensional Relationship Closeness Scale (URCS): Reliability and validity evidence for a new measure of relationship closeness. Psychological Assessment 24, 3 (2012), 565.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Kathryn Dindia and Daniel J. Canary. 1993. Definitions and theoretical perspectives on maintaining relationships. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 10, 2 (1993), 163--173.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Steven Dow. 2016. Probe to learn, probe to design. Interactions 23, 4 (June 2016), 22--23. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Nicole B. Ellison, Rebecca Gray, Jessica Vitak, Cliff Lampe, and Andrew T. Fiore. 2013. Calling all Facebook friends: Exploring requests for help on Facebook. In Proceedings of the 7th AAAI International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media.Google Scholar
- Maddy Foley. 2016. What is a Snapchat streak? Here's everything you need to know about snapstreaks. https://www.bustle.com/articles/162803-what-is-a-snapchat-streak-heres-everything-you-need-to-know-about-snapstreaks. (2016). Bustle: Online; accessed 10 July 2018.Google Scholar
- Ilana Gershon. 2010. Media ideologies: An introduction. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 20, 2 (2010), 283--293.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Daniel Gooch and Leon Watts. 2011. A design framework for mediated personal relationship devices. In Proceedings of the 25th BCS Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (BCS-HCI '11). British Computer Society, Swinton, UK, UK, 237--242. http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2305316.2305360 Google ScholarCross Ref
- Daniel Gooch and Leon Watts. 2011. The magic sock drawer project. In CHI '11 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '11). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 243--252. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Daniel Gooch and Leon Watts. 2014. Social presence and the void in distant relationships: How do people use communication technologies to turn absence into fondness of the heart, rather than drifting out of mind? AI & Society 29, 4 (2014), 507--519. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Rebecca E. Grinter and Margery A. Eldridge. 2001. y do tngrs luv 2 txt msg?. In Proceedings of 2001 European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work. Springer, 219--238. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Rebecca E. Grinter and Margery A. Eldridge. 2003. Wan2Tlk?: Everyday text messaging. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '03). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 441--448. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Rebecca E. Grinter, Leysia Palen, and Margery A. Eldridge. 2006. Chatting with teenagers: Considering the place of chat technologies in teen life. ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact. 13, 4 (Dec. 2006), 423--447. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Sandra G. Hart and Lowell E. Staveland. 1988. Development of NASA-TLX (Task Load Index): Results of empirical and theoretical research. Advances in Psychology 52 (1988), 139--183.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Marc Hassenzahl, Stephanie Heidecker, Kai Eckoldt, Sarah Diefenbach, and Uwe Hillmann. 2012. All you need is love: Current strategies of mediating intimate relationships through technology. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction 19, 4, Article 30 (Dec. 2012), 19 pages. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Mariam Hassib, Daniel Buschek, Pawel W. Wozniak, and Florian Alt. 2017. HeartChat: Heart rate augmented mobile chat to support empathy and awareness. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '17). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2239--2251. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Joseph 'Jofish' Kaye. 2006. I just clicked to say I love you: Rich evaluations of minimal communication. In CHI '06 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '06). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 363--368. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Ryan Kelly, Daniel Gooch, Bhagyashree Patil, and Leon Watts. 2017. Demanding by design: Supporting effortful communication practices in close personal relationships. In Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW '17). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 70--83. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Ryan Kelly and Leon Watts. 2015. Characterising the inventive appropriation of emoji as relationally meaningful in mediated close personal relationships. In Proceedings of Workshop on Experiences of Technology Appropriation: Unanticipated Users, Usage, Circumstances, and Design (ECSCW'15). 1--7.Google Scholar
- Da-jung Kim and Youn-kyung Lim. 2015. Dwelling places in KakaoTalk: Understanding the roles and meanings of chatrooms in mobile instant messengers. In Proceedings of the 18th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (CSCW '15). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 775--784. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Simon King and Jodi Forlizzi. 2007. Slow messaging: Intimate communication for couples living at a distance. In Proceedings of the 2007 Conference on Designing Pleasurable Products and Interfaces (DPPI '07). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 451--454. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Siân E. Lindley, Richard Harper, and Abigail Sellen. 2009. Desiring to be in touch in a changing communications landscape: Attitudes of older adults. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '09). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1693--1702. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Fannie Liu, Laura Dabbish, and Geo Kaufman. 2017. Can biosignals be expressive?: How visualizations affect impression formation from shared brain activity. Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. 1, CSCW, Article 71 (Dec. 2017), 21 pages. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Taylor Lorenz. 2017. Teens explain the world of Snapchat's addictive streaks, where friendships live or die. http://www.businessinsider.com/teens-explain-snapchat-streaks-why-theyre-so-addictive-and-important-to-friendships-2017--4? IR=T. (2017). Business Insider: Online; accessed 10 July 2018.Google Scholar
- Panos Markopoulos. 2009. A design framework for awareness systems. In Awareness Systems, Panos Markopoulos, Boris De Ruyter, and Wendy Mackay (Eds.). Springer, 49--72.Google Scholar
- Bree McEwan. 2013. Sharing, caring, and surveilling: An actor--partner interdependence model examination of Facebook relational maintenance strategies. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 16, 12 (2013), 863--869.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Sarah McRoberts, Haiwei Ma, Andrew Hall, and Svetlana Yarosh. 2017. Share first, save later: Performance of self through Snapchat stories. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '17). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 6902--6911. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Lokman I. Meho. 2006. E-mail interviewing in qualitative research: A methodological discussion. Journal of the American society for information science and technology 57, 10 (2006), 1284--1295. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Midas Nouwens, Carla F. Griggio, and Wendy E. Mackay. 2017. "WhatsApp is for Family; Messenger is for Friends": Communication places in app ecosystems. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '17). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 727--735. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Kenton P. O'Hara, Michael Massimi, Richard Harper, Simon Rubens, and Jessica Morris. 2014. Everyday dwelling with WhatsApp. In Proceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (CSCW '14). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1131--1143. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Martin Podlubny, John Rooksby, Mattias Rost, and Matthew Chalmers. 2017. Synchronous text messaging: A field trial of Curtains Messenger. Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. 1, CSCW, Article 86 (Dec. 2017), 20 pages. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Blaine A. Price, Ryan Kelly, Vikram Mehta, Ciaran McCormick, Hanad Ahmed, and Oliver Pearce. 2018. Feel my pain: Design and evaluation of painpad, a tangible device for supporting inpatient self-logging of pain. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '18). ACM, New York, NY, USA, Article 169, 13 pages. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Artemio Ramirez Jr and Kathy Broneck. 2009. 'IM me': Instant messaging as relational maintenance and everyday communication. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 26, 2--3 (2009), 291--314.Google Scholar
- Yann Riche, Nathalie Henry Riche, Petra Isenberg, and Anastasia Bezerianos. 2010. Hard-to-use interfaces considered beneficial (some of the time). In CHI '10 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '10). 2705--2714. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Natalia Romero, Panos Markopoulos, Joy Van Baren, Boris De Ruyter, Wijnand Ijsselsteijn, and Babak Farshchian. 2007. Connecting the family with awareness systems. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 11, 4 (2007), 299--312. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Mattias Rost, Christos Kitsos, Alexander Morgan, Martin Podlubny, Pietro Romeo, Edoardo Russo, and Matthew Chalmers. 2016. Forget-me-not: History-less mobile messaging. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '16). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1904--1908. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Lauren E. Scissors and Darren Gergle. 2013. "Back and forth, back and forth": Channel switching in romantic couple conflict. In Proceedings of the 2013 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW '13). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 237--248. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Victoria Schwanda Sosik and Natalya N.Bazarova. 2014.Relational maintenance on social network sites: How Facebook communication predicts relational escalation. Computers in Human Behavior 35 (2014), 124--131.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Rob Strong and Bill Gaver. 1996. Feather, scent and shaker: Supporting simple intimacy. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, Vol. 96. 29--30.Google Scholar
- Hyewon Suh, Nina Shahriaree, Eric B. Hekler, and Julie A. Kientz. 2016. Developing and validating the user burden scale: A tool for assessing user burden in computing systems. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '16). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 3988--3999. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Anja Thieme, Jayne Wallace, James Thomas, Ko Le Chen, Nicole Krämer, and Patrick Olivier. 2011. Lovers' box: Designing for reflection within romantic relationships. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 69, 5 (2011), 283--297. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Catalina L. Toma and Mina Choi. 2016. Mobile media matters: Media use and relationship satisfaction among geographically close dating couples. In Proceedings of the 19th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (CSCW '16). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 394--404. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Stephanie T. Tong and Joseph B. Walther. 2011. Relational maintenance and CMC. Computer-mediated communication in personal relationships (2011), 98--118.Google Scholar
- Sherry Turkle. 2017. Alone Together: why we expect more from technology and less from each other. Hachette UK. Google ScholarDigital Library
- J. Mitchell Vaterlaus, Kathryn Barnett, Cesia Roche, and Jimmy A Young. 2016. "Snapchat is more personal": An exploratory study on Snapchat behaviors and young adult interpersonal relationships. Computers in Human Behavior 62 (2016), 594--601. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Frank Vetere, Martin R. Gibbs, Jesper Kjeldskov, Steve Howard, Florian 'Floyd' Mueller, Sonja Pedell, Karen Mecoles, and Marcus Bunyan. 2005. Mediating intimacy: Designing technologies to support strong-tie relationships. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '05). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 471--480. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Jessica Vitak. 2014. Facebook makes the heart grow fonder: Relationship maintenance strategies among geographically dispersed and communication-restricted connections. In Proceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (CSCW '14). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 842--853. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Jessica Vitak and Nicole B. Ellison. 2012. 'There's a network out there you might as well tap': Exploring the bene ts of and barriers to exchanging informational and support-based resources on Facebook. New Media & Society 15, 2 (2012), 243--259.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Yang Wang, Yao Li, and Jian Tang. 2015. Dwelling and fleeting encounters: Exploring why people use WeChat - A mobile instant messenger. In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '15). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1543--1548. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Ferdinand R. H. Zijlstra. 1993. Efficiency in work behaviour: A design approach for modern tools. PhD Thesis, TU Delft. (1993).Google Scholar
Index Terms
- 'It's More Like a Letter': An Exploration of Mediated Conversational Effort in Message Builder
Recommendations
Designing for reflection on sender effort in close personal communication
OzCHI '18: Proceedings of the 30th Australian Conference on Computer-Human InteractionResearch has identified that people in close relationships value effort that is invested into the creation of digital messages. This paper explores the potential for communication systems to encourage reflection by revealing evidence of effort to ...
Demanding by Design: Supporting Effortful Communication Practices in Close Personal Relationships
CSCW '17: Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social ComputingThe investment of effort into personal communication can be highly meaningful to people, and has particular significance for the mediation of close relationships. This paper presents qualities of effort investment that are seen to be valuable. ...
Is 'Additional' Effort Always Negative?: Understanding Discretionary Work in Interpersonal Communications
CSCW'15 Companion: Proceedings of the 18th ACM Conference Companion on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social ComputingThis paper describes a position on the meaning of effort in interaction design, particularly for communication systems. We make use of interview data to illustrate our ongoing research on how people invest discretionary effort when using communication ...
Comments