Presence in Absence : Personalization of Tangible Intimate Objects for Long-distance Relationships

Sammanfattning: This paper presents a new way of thinking about designing personalized artefacts for dyads (a group of two people) in long-distance relationships, whether they are family members, close friends or romantic couples. In this paper I am presenting the idea of a playful, yet useful tangible design for people who are often not able to see their loved ones in person. I strive to ideate a highly personalized and meaningful design through a Do It Yourself (DIY) activity for users, which will give them a chance to personalize the product according to their own needs. For this research, littleBits electronics have been used as a prototyping and DIY material. They allow you to create and connect two devices together and use them for different purposes. User testing with two close friends who live in different countries has been conducted. They received three different half-way done prototypes that they could choose from to build. The results showed that the idea of DIY artefact for presence in absence is worth researching, since the activity creates a meaningful shared experience which adds a bigger value to the device.