research-article

Family Rituals and the Potential for Interaction Design: A Study of Christmas

Authors:

Daniela Petrelli,

Ann LightAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), Volume 21, Issue 3

Article No.: 16, Pages 1 - 29

https://doi.org/10.1145/2617571

Published: 30 June 2014 Publication History

Abstract

Drawing on a field study with eight families in northern England, we explore the traditions and rituals carried out at Christmas, looking at the artifacts and processes that constitute family life at this time of year. In addition to individual differences, a common pattern emerges: an extended preparation is carried out by the hosting household over a few weeks to set up the celebration and build expectations; preparation gives way to a short but intense celebration shared with the family or intimate friends; then decorations are stored and there is a return to normal life. The celebration is across generations, and everyone takes part. We note examples of new and evolving rituals. Starting from the three identified phases, we discuss the theoretical and technical implications of our findings for the design of more sympathetic technology that holds potential for augmenting family rituals sensitively and possibly creating new ones.

References

[1]

M. Ames, J. Go, J. Kaye, and M. Spasojevic. 2010. Making love in the network closet: The benefits and work of family videochat. In Proceedings of the CSCW’10. 145--154.

Digital Library

[2]

C. Bell. 2009. Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions. Oxford University Press.

[3]

G. Bell. 2006. No more SMS from Jesus: Ubicomp, religion and techno-spiritual practices. In Proceedings of the UBICOMP 2006. Springer, LNCS 4206/2006, 141--158.

Digital Library

[4]

R. Belk. 1993. Materialism and the making of the modern American Christmas. In D. Miller (ed.), Unwrapping Christmas. Clarendon Press.

[5]

R. Belk, M. Wallendorf, and J. F. Sherry. 1989. The sacred and the profane in consumer behaviour: Theodicy on the Odyssey. Journal of Consumer Research 16, 1, 1--38.

[6]

S. Bowen and D. Petrelli. 2011. Remembering today tomorrow: Exploring the human-centred design of digital mementos. IJHCS: International Journal of Human Computer Studies 69, 5, 324--337.

Digital Library

[7]

J. Brockmeier. 2010. After the archive: Remapping memory. Culture and Psychology 16, 1, 5--35.

[8]

J. Carrier. 1993. The rituals of Christmas giving. In D. Miller (ed.), Unwrapping Christmas. Clarendon Press.

[9]

D. Cosley, V. Sosik, J. Shultz, S. Peesapati, and S. Lee. 2012. Experiences with designing tools for everyday reminiscing. Human Computer Interaction 27, 1--2, 175--198.

[10]

C. Crespo. 2012. Families as contexts for attachment: Reflections on theory, research, and the role of family rituals. Journal of Family Theory Review 4, 4, 290--298.

[11]

L. Dib, D. Petrelli, and S. Whittaker. 2010. Sonic souvenirs: Exploring the paradoxes of recorded sounds for family remembering. In Proceedings of the CSCW’10. 391--400.

Digital Library

[12]

D. Frohlich and R. Kraut. 2003. The social context of home computing. In R. Harper (ed.), Inside the Smart Home. Springer, 127--162.

[13]

W. Gaver, J. Bowers, A. Boucher, H. Gellerson, S. Pennington, A. Schmidt, A. Steed, N. Villar, and B. Walker. 2004. The drift table: Designing for ludic engagement. In Proceedings of the CHI’04 Extended Abstracts. ACM Press, 885--900.

Digital Library

[14]

R. Gifford. 2002. Environmental Psychology: Principles and Practice, 3rd ed. Optimal Books.

[15]

A. Grimes and R. Harper. 2008. Celebratory technology: New directions for food research in HCI. In Proceedings of the CHI’08. ACM Press, 467--476.

Digital Library

[16]

L. Hallnäs and J. Redström. 2001. Slow technology--Designing for reflection. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 5, 3, 201--212.

Digital Library

[17]

J. Helmes, C. Hummel, and A. Sellen. 2009. The Other Brother: Re-experiencing spontaneous moments from domestic life. In Proceedings of the TEI. 233--240.

Digital Library

[18]

G. Islam and M. Zyphor. 2009. Rituals in organizations--A review and expansion of current theory. Group and Organization Management 34, 1, 114--139.

[19]

T. Judge, C. Neustaedter, and A. Kurtz. 2010. The family window: The design and evaluation of a domestic media space. In Proceedings of the CHI’10. ACM, 2361--2370.

Digital Library

[20]

T. Kasser and K. Sheldon. 2002. What makes for a merry Christmas&quest; Journal of Happiness Studies 3, 313--329.

[21]

D. Kirk and A. Sellen. 2010. On human remains: Values and practice in the home archiving of cherished objects. Transactions on Human Computer Interaction, 17 (3), 1--43.

Digital Library

[22]

A. Kuper. 1993. The English Christmas and the family: Time out and alternative realities. In D. Miller (ed.), Unwrapping Christmas. Clarendon Press.

[23]

A. Light. 2006. Adding method to meaning: A technique for exploring peoples’ experience with digital products. Behaviour and Information Technology 25, 2, 175--187.

[24]

A. Light. 2008. Transports of delight&quest;: What the experience of receiving (mobile) phone calls can tell us about design. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 12, 5, 391--400.

Digital Library

[25]

A. Light, C. Miskelly, and S. Thompson. 2008. An analysis of building habitat with networked tools. In Proceedings of OzCHI 2008. Cairns, December, 2008.

Digital Library

[26]

S. Lindley, R. Harper, and A. Sellen. 2010. Designing a technological playground: A field study of the emergence of play in household messaging. In Proceedings of the CHI’10. 2351--2360.

Digital Library

[27]

C. Marshall. 2007. How people manage personal information over a lifetime. In W. Jones and J. Teevan (eds.), Personal Information Management. University of Washington Press, 57--75.

[28]

G. McCracken. 2005. Culture and Consumption II—Markets, Meaning, and Brand Management. Indiana University Press.

[29]

D. Miller. 2008. The Comfort of Things. Polity Press.

[30]

D. Miller. 1993. A theory of Christmas. In D. Miller (ed.), Unwrapping Christmas. Clarendon Press. Neustaedter.

[31]

G. Oleksik, D. Frohlich, L. Brown, and A. Sellen. 2008. Sonic interventions: Understanding and extending the domestic soundscape. In Proceedings of the CHI’08. 1419--1428.

Digital Library

[32]

W. Odom, J. Pierce, E. Stolterman, and E. Blevis. 2009. Understanding why we preserve some things and discard others in the context of interaction design. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 1053--1062.

Digital Library

[33]

D. Petrelli, S. Bowen, N. Dulake, and A. Light. 2010. Digital Christmas: An exploration of festive technology. In Proceedings of the DIS’10 Designing Interactive Systems.

Digital Library

[34]

D. Petrelli, E. van den Hoven, and S. Whittaker. 2009. Making history: Intentional capturing of future memories. In Proceedings of the CHI’09. 1723--1732.

Digital Library

[35]

D. Petrelli, S. Whittaker, and J. Brockmeier. 2008. Autotopography: What can physical mementos tell us about digital memories&quest; In Proceedings of the CHI’08. 53--62.

Digital Library

[36]

D. Petrelli and S. Whittaker. 2010. Family memories in the home: Contrasting physical and digital mementos. Journal of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 14, 2.

Digital Library

[37]

D. Petrelli, N. Villar, V. Kalnikaite, L. Dib, and S. Whittaker. 2010. FM radio: Family interplay with sonic mementos. In Proceedings of the CHI’10. 2371--2380.

Digital Library

[38]

C. Plaisant, A. Clamage, H. Hudtchinson, B. Bederson, and A. Druin. 2006. Shared family calendars: Promoting symmetry and accessibility. TOCHI 13, 3, 313--346

Digital Library

[39]

D. Randall, R. Harper, and M. Rouncefield. 2007. Fieldwork for Design: Theory and Practice. Springer--CSCW series.

Digital Library

[40]

M. Searle-Chatterjee. 1993. Christmas cards and the construction of social relations in Britain today. In D. Miller (ed.), Unwrapping Christmas. Clarendon Press.

[41]

R. Sarvas and D. Frohlich. 2011. From Snapshots to Social Media—The Changing Picture of Domestic Photography. Springer.

Digital Library

[42]

A. Schutz. 1973. Collected Papers, volume 1: The Problem of Social Reality. Martinus Nijhoff.

[43]

G. Schofield. 2002. The significance of a secure base: A psychosocial model of long-term foster care. Child and Family Social Work. 7, 4, 259--272.

[44]

M. Susani. 1994. The Sensible Home. &commat;HOME—2nd Doors of Perception. Available at http://museum.doorsofperception.com/doors2/transcripts/susani.html.

[45]

M. Svensson, K. Höök, J. Laaksolahti, and A. Waern. 2001. Social navigation of food recipes. In Proceedings of the CHI’01. 341--348.

Digital Library

[46]

L. Swan, A. S. Taylor, and R. Harper. 2008. Making place for clutter and other ideas of home. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interactions, TOCHI 15 (2), 1--24.

Digital Library

[47]

L. Terrenghi, O. Hilliges, and A. Butz. 2007. Kitchen Stories: Sharing recipes with the Living Cookbook. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 11, 409--414.

Digital Library

[48]

H. Trice and J. Bayer. 1984. Studying organizational cultures through rites and ceremonials. Academy of Management Review 9, 4, 653--669.

[49]

V. Turner. 1969. The Ritual Process—Structure and Anti-Structure. Aldine Transaction.

[50]

V. Turner. 1987. The Anthropology of Performance. PAJ Publications.

[51]

J. Van Dijck. 2007. Mediated Memories in the Digital Age. Stanford University Press.

[52]

A. Van Gennep. 1960. The Rites of Passage. University of Chicago Press.

[53]

A. Voida, S. Carpendale, and S. Greenberg. 2010. The individual and the group in console gaming. In Proceeding sof the CSCW. 371--380.

Digital Library

[54]

S. Wyche and R. Grener. 2009. Extraordinary computing: Religion as a lens to reconsidering the home. In Proceedings of the CHI’09. 749--758.

Digital Library

Cited By

Ankenbauer SBrewer R(2024)Spirits in the Material World: Older Adults' Personal Curation of Memory ArtifactsProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36869958:CSCW2(1-35)Online publication date: 8-Nov-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3686995
Cho JChoi DYu JVoida S(2024)Reinforcing and Reclaiming The Home: Co-speculating Future Technologies to Support Remote and Hybrid WorkProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642381(1-28)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642381
Haverfield MEstlein RTitova DdeSouza DCarrillo YWillis BMaciel S(2024)Family Rituals and Coping During a Global Pandemic: A Cross-Cultural ComparisonCommunication Studies10.1080/10510974.2024.2385779(1-21)Online publication date: 8-Aug-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/10510974.2024.2385779
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Family Rituals and the Potential for Interaction Design: A Study of Christmas
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Human computer interaction (HCI)
    1. HCI design and evaluation methods
    2. Interaction paradigms
  2. Interaction design
    1. Interaction design process and methods
      1. User centered design

Recommendations

Digital Christmas: an exploration of festive technology
DIS '12: Proceedings of the Designing Interactive Systems Conference

Elaborating on the result of a field study of Christmas traditions in eight British households, we explore the design of technology specifically aimed at augmenting existing practices. Four concepts that favoured playfulness and engagement across ...
The Digital Monument to the Jewish Community in the Netherlands: a meaningful, ritual place for commemoration
Online Memorial Cultures

The conclusion is that cyberspace may offer a significant and relevant place for, in this case, commemoration practices. Both Digital Monument and Community offer a meaningful place of commemoration of Dutch victims of the Shoah.
Design Interactions in ?elәwk^w: Belongings
DIS '16: Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems

Our pictorial visually describes ?elәwk^w -- Belongings, an interactive tangible tabletop installed in the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. The tabletop was designed to communicate the continuity of Musqueam culture, convey ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction

ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction Volume 21, Issue 3

June 2014

174 pages

ISSN:1073-0516

EISSN:1557-7325

DOI:10.1145/2633906

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2014 ACM.

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 the author(s) 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].

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 30 June 2014

Accepted: 01 February 2014

Revised: 01 November 2013

Received: 01 December 2012

Published in TOCHI Volume 21, Issue 3

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article
Research
Refereed

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

32
Total Citations
View Citations
1,872
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)238
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)28

Reflects downloads up to 13 Jan 2025

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Ankenbauer SBrewer R(2024)Spirits in the Material World: Older Adults' Personal Curation of Memory ArtifactsProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36869958:CSCW2(1-35)Online publication date: 8-Nov-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3686995
Cho JChoi DYu JVoida S(2024)Reinforcing and Reclaiming The Home: Co-speculating Future Technologies to Support Remote and Hybrid WorkProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642381(1-28)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642381
Haverfield MEstlein RTitova DdeSouza DCarrillo YWillis BMaciel S(2024)Family Rituals and Coping During a Global Pandemic: A Cross-Cultural ComparisonCommunication Studies10.1080/10510974.2024.2385779(1-21)Online publication date: 8-Aug-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/10510974.2024.2385779
Xu ZBao YDong HWu YTang G(2024)Heart of the future home: a multidimensional model of inclusive kitchen for older people in the UKHumanities and Social Sciences Communications10.1057/s41599-024-03508-111:1Online publication date: 1-Aug-2024
https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03508-1
Pooley AMay AMitchell V(2023)Furthering the Development of Virtual Agents and Communication Robot Devices through the Consideration of the Temporal HomeMultimodal Technologies and Interaction10.3390/mti71101047:11(104)Online publication date: 13-Nov-2023
https://doi.org/10.3390/mti7110104
Rapp ABoldi A(2023)Exploring the Lived Experience of Behavior Change Technologies: Towards an Existential Model of Behavior Change for HCIACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction10.1145/360349730:6(1-50)Online publication date: 25-Sep-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3603497
Gibson RKoleva BFlintham MWinklhofer H(2023)Gifting the Past in the Present: An Exploration of Evoking Nostalgia through Hybrid GiftsProceedings of the 2023 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3563657.3596103(1047-1059)Online publication date: 10-Jul-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3563657.3596103
Kline SJones EPrice KHu X(2023)Older Adult Representations, Stereotypes, and Interpersonal Competence in Christmas TelevisionMass Communication and Society10.1080/15205436.2023.218222227:1(125-147)Online publication date: 3-Apr-2023
https://doi.org/10.1080/15205436.2023.2182222
Kwon H(2022)Exploring Digital Gifting RitualsArchives of Design Research10.15187/adr.2022.05.35.2.7335:2(73-85)Online publication date: 31-May-2022
https://doi.org/10.15187/adr.2022.05.35.2.73
Kwon H(2022)Ritual of Everyday Digital Life: Towards Human-Centred Smart LivingArchives of Design Research10.15187/adr.2022.05.35.2.2735:2(27-43)Online publication date: 31-May-2022
https://doi.org/10.15187/adr.2022.05.35.2.27
Show More Cited By

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Article

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Issue’s Table of Contents