Duration

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Fall 2009 - 4 months

Tools & Methods

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Focus group
Ethnographic observation
Affinity diagraming
Story-boarding
Sketching
Prototyping
User testing

Team

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Chris Basham
Anthony Nguyen

Deliverables

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Download as PDF:
Focus Group Report
Ethnography Report
Affinity Diagram Report
Prototyping Report
User Test Report
Usability Results Report

PillowTalk: Facilitating nighttime communication for non-collocated couples

Summary:

The project was part of Shaowen Bardzell's Interaction Design Methods course. For the course of the semester we worked within the project space of Interaction after Dark. We were asked to consider "How might the behavior of people and our technology change when evening comes?" My group decided to focus on couples in long distance relationships.

Our concept, PillowTalk, focuses around facilitating nighttime communication for these couples separated by distance through video chatting and simulating physical contact.

This project used a large variety of user research methods, prototyping methods, and user testing methods. Additionally design documentations, communicating results, and team collaboration skills were used.

Process:

PillowTalk was developed over the course of an entire semester. The design emerged by taking the following steps to explore our problem space and target user group:

• Focus group:
  Exploration of college students in long-distance relationships and their nighttime activities
• Ethnographic observation:
  Observing a graduate student in the evening has he communicates with his long-distance girlfriend
• Secondary research:
  Reading and analyzing previous work on topics relating to the problem space including non-collocation, communication facilitation, romantic relationships
• Affinity diagram:
  Organizing data collected from the focus group, ethnography, and secondary research in order to gain design insights
• Ideation/sketching:
  Designing based upon research insights, sketching, and iterating upon possible technologies to aid in romantic, non-collocated communication. This is where the concept for PillowTalk was initially considered (and decided upon) as our solution.
• Story-boarding:
  Utilizing story-boarding techniques to better understand possible user scenarios with our design.
• Prototyping:
  Building a prototype using a variety of materials and crafting techniques.
• User testing:
  Evaluating the concept and prototype for PillowTalk in order to gain better understanding of its appeal to users and usability

User Research:

The focus group gave great insights into the communication difficulties of being in a long distance relationship. Scheduling, intimacy, and depth of conversation (small talk vs. sharing deep personal information) were among many emergent topics during the group. For this project I took the role of the moderator.





Once the insights from the focus group were reviewed, I conducted a 2 hour ethnographic study at the home of a graduate student in a long-distance relationship. I found issues in scheduling, the way technology facilitates certain levels of communication. Non-verbal cues were lost and often led to miscommunications. Additionally, I observed the types of typical conversation topics

Secondary research was obtained through reading the work of others on the topic. We used affinity diagraming to organize the data gathered from all of our initial research.


By grouping our information in different methods, we gained the valuable insight that couples adapt to limitations of technological mediums. Each type of technology inherently possesses certain limitations [1]. These limitations affect the users’ decisions to use the technology [2] and how they use that specific technology [3]. Furthermore, the technological medium affects the users’ behaviors [4].

From our research and data organization, we began sketching different ideas that would help facilitate the communication issues and barriers we found.

Several ideas were considered before our group decided to develop PillowTalk. PillowTalk, focuses around facilitating nighttime communication for these couples separated by distance through video chatting and simulating physical contact. "Pillow talk" is a term often used to describe night-time talks between couples while lying in bed. Our concept was a pillow specially designed to facilitate "pillow talk" in a long distance relationship. The concept was a pillow that unfolded to reveal a video camera and screen for communication and an arm to simulate the physical touch unavailable to partners in a long distance relationship. Each person in the relationship would have one of these specially designed pillows and be able to participant in pillow talk while in separate cities, states, or even countries.We used story-boarding techniques to refine the concept and situations in which the concept may be used.




Prototyping:

Our prototyping process consisted of 3 steps: First, we planned and approximated our concept on paper. Second, we constructed a skeleton for the general form for PillowTalk using foam core. Third, we added details and functionality to the prototype using a wide varieties of materials.





User Testing:

Once our prototype was completed, we recruited 3 college students who were romantically involved with someone either in other cities, states, or countries.
For our test, we took our prototype in the homes of individuals in a long distance relationship. We wanted to see how they might engage with it. The three test objectives for this test were engagement level, form factor, and how it worked as a means of communication.



To see the full results from our user test, please see the Usability Results Report.
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