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Mediating intimacy: designing technologies to support strong-tie relationships

Published: 02 April 2005 Publication History

Abstract

Intimacy is a crucial element of domestic life, and many interactive technologies designed for other purposes have been appropriated for use within intimate relationships. However, there is a deficit in current understandings of how technologies are used within intimate relationships, and how to design technologies to support intimate acts. In this paper we report on work that has addressed these deficits. We used cultural probes and contextual interviews and other ethnographically informed techniques to investigate how interactive technologies are used within intimate relationships. From this empirical work we generated a thematic understanding of intimacy and the use of interactional technologies to support intimate acts. We used this understanding to inform the design of intimate technologies. A selection of our design concepts is also presented.

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    CHI '05: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
    April 2005
    928 pages
    ISBN:1581139985
    DOI:10.1145/1054972
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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    Published: 02 April 2005

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    Author Tags

    1. cultural probes
    2. ethnography
    3. intimacy
    4. intimate technology
    5. participatory design
    6. tactile interfaces

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    • (2024)WhisperCup: A Design Exploration for Improving the Remote Communication between Chinese Parents and Their Adult Children through Digitally-Augmented Everyday ObjectsProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36765348:MHCI(1-26)Online publication date: 24-Sep-2024
    • (2024)Designing Smart Home Technology For Passive Co-Presence Over DistanceProceedings of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3643834.3661508(3389-3406)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2024
    • (2024)Passive Co-presence: Exploring How Peripheral Devices Connect People Over DistanceExtended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613905.3651126(1-6)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
    • (2024)There is an “I” in “We”: Relatedness Technologies Viewed Through the Lens of the Need for AutonomyExtended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613905.3650985(1-7)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
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    • (2023)DisClose: Negative Body-Related Self-Disclosure to Mediate Intimacy over DistanceProceedings of the 35th Australian Computer-Human Interaction Conference10.1145/3638380.3638391(114-127)Online publication date: 2-Dec-2023
    • (2023)Closer Worlds: Using Generative AI to Facilitate Intimate ConversationsExtended Abstracts of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544549.3585651(1-15)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
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