Productive love: a new approach for designing affective technology

ABSTRACT

The importance of love is reflected in literature, movies and music, therefore it seems necessary to understand what role technology plays in relation to love and the roles it could to play in the future. We review studies related to Love in HCI and we identify a lack of consideration of philosophy as a background for love understanding. Based on literature review, we offer a proposal of guidelines for designing technology that aims to improve loving relationships. Besides, we explore principles of engagement with technology that may be important when designing love-promoting technology. Finally we propose a practical design example.

REFERENCES

• 1: Mark Blythe , Marc Hassenzahl, The semantics of fun: differentiating enjoyable experiences, Funology: from usability to enjoyment, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Norwell, MA, 2005
• 2: Jay David Bolter , Diane Gromala, Windows and Mirrors: Interaction Design, Digital Art, and the Myth of Transparency, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2003
• 3: Brown, B., Taylor, A., Izadi, S., Sellen, A. and Kay, J. Locating Family Values: A field trial of the whereabouts clock. In Proc. UbiComp 2007. Insbruck, Austria. Springer, (2007), 354--371.
• 4: Burston, D. Reply to Pnina Shinebourne's Essay Review in Existential Analysis 17.2 on The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm. Existential Analysis. 18, 1 (2007), 198--201.
• 5: Angela Chang , Ben Resner , Brad Koerner , XingChen Wang , Hiroshi Ishii, LumiTouch: an emotional communication device, CHI '01 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems, March 31-April 05, 2001, Seattle, Washington [doi>10.1145/634067.634252]
• 6: Chapman, G. The Five Love Languages. Northfield, IL, Chicago, 1995.
• 7: Hyemin Chung , Chia-Hsun Jackie Lee , Ted Selker, Lover's cups: drinking interfaces as new communication channels, CHI '06 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems, April 22-27, 2006, Montréal, Québec, Canada [doi>10.1145/1125451.1125532]
• 8: Csikszentmihalyi, M., Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Harper Row, New York, 1990.
• 9: Dion, K.K., Dion, K.L. Cultural perspectives on romantic love. Personal Relationships, 3, (1996), 5--17.
• 10: Fromm, E. The Art of Loving, 1995 edn. Thorsons, London, 1956.
• 11: Gelbond, B. Self-actualization and unselfish love. Journal of Religious Humanism, 13, (1979), 74--78.
• 12: Martin R. Gibbs , Frank Vetere , Marcus Bunyan , Steve Howard, SynchroMate: a phatic technology for mediating intimacy, Proceedings of the 2005 conference on Designing for User eXperience, November 03-05, 2005, San Francisco, California
• 13: Goodman, E. and Misilim, M. The Sensing Beds. In Proc. UbiComp Workshop 2003, (2003).
• 14: Hatfield, E., Utne, M.K., Traupmann, J. Equity theory and intimate relationships, in R.L., Burgess, and T. L. Huston, (Eds.). Social Exchange in Developing Relationships, Academic Press, New York, 1979.
• 15: Debby Hindus , Scott D. Mainwaring , Nicole Leduc , Anna Elizabeth Hagström , Oliver Bayley, Casablanca: designing social communication devices for the home, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.325-332, March 2001, Seattle, Washington, United States [doi>10.1145/365024.383749]
• 16: Wouter van der Hoog , Ianus Keller , Pieter Jan Stappers, Gustbowl: technology supporting affective communication through routine ritual interactions, CHI '04 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems, April 24-29, 2004, Vienna, Austria [doi>10.1145/985921.985930]
• 17: C. A. G. J. Huijnen , W. A. IJsselsteijn , P. Markopoulos , B. de Ruyter, Social presence and group attraction: exploring the effects of awareness systems in the home, Cognition, Technology and Work, v.6 n.1, p.41-44, February 2004 [doi>10.1007/s10111-003-0141-z]
• 18: Joseph 'Jofish' Kaye , Liz Goulding, Intimate objects, Proceedings of the 5th conference on Designing interactive systems: processes, practices, methods, and techniques, August 01-04, 2004, Cambridge, MA, USA [doi>10.1145/1013115.1013175]
• 19: Le, T.N. A measure of immature love, Individual Differences Research, 3, b, (2005).
• 20: Lee, J.A. The colors of Love: An exploration of the ways of loving. New Press, Ontario, Canada, 1973.
• 21: Lin, L., and Huddleston-Casas, C.A. Agape love in couple relationships. Marriage and Family Review, 37 (4), (2005). 29, 48. J.
• 22: Elizabeth D. Mynatt , Jim Rowan , Sarah Craighill , Annie Jacobs, Digital family portraits: supporting peace of mind for extended family members, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.333-340, March 2001, Seattle, Washington, United States [doi>10.1145/365024.365126]
• 23: Natalia Romero , Panos Markopoulos , Joy Baren , Boris Ruyter , Wijnand Ijsselsteijn , Babak Farshchian, Connecting the family with awareness systems, Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, v.11 n.4, p.299-312, April 2007 [doi>10.1007/s00779-006-0089-0]
• 24: Rubin, Z. Measurement of romantic love, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 16, b, (1970), 265--273.
• 25: Shinebourne, P. Erich Fromm's The art of loving: 50 years on. Existential Analysis: Journal of the Society for Existential Analysis, 17, b (2006), 397--408.
• 26: Siio, I., Rowan, J., Mima, N. and Mynatt, E. Digital Decor: Augmented everyday things. Graphics Interface, 11, 13 (2003), 155--166.
• 27: Sternberg, R.B. Construct validation of a triangular love scale. European Journal of Psychology, 27, (1997), 313--335.
• 28: Strong, R. and Gaver, B. Feather, Scent and Shaker: Supporting simple intimacy. Proc. CSCW 1996, ACM Press (1996).
• 29: Frank Vetere , Martin R. Gibbs , Jesper Kjeldskov , Steve Howard , Florian 'Floyd' Mueller , Sonja Pedell , Karen Mecoles , Marcus Bunyan, Mediating intimacy: designing technologies to support strong-tie relationships, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, April 02-07, 2005, Portland, Oregon, USA [doi>10.1145/1054972.1055038]
• 30: Weinstein, R.S. What heals in psychoanalysis? Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 27, (2007), 302--309.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.3 Group and Organization Interfaces
          Subjects: Evaluation/methodology

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.2 Design Tools and Techniques
          Subjects: User interfaces

  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.3 Group and Organization Interfaces
          Subjects: Theory and models

General Terms:
Design, Theory

Keywords:
affective technology, care, family, knowledge, lovers, productive love, respect, responsibility