research-article

Flex-N-Feel: The Design and Evaluation of Emotive Gloves for Couples to Support Touch Over Distance

Authors:

Samarth Singhal,

Carman Neustaedter,

Alissa N. Antle,

Brendan MatkinAuthors Info & Claims

CSCW '17: Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing

Pages 98 - 110

https://doi.org/10.1145/2998181.2998247

Published: 25 February 2017 Publication History

Abstract

Many couples live apart due to work, educational situations, or frequent travel. While technology can help mediate these relationships, there is a lack of designs that allow couples to share a sense of touch over distance. We present a design case study of a tangible communication system called Flex- N-Feel--a pair of gloves that allows distance-separated couples to feel the flexing of their remote partners' fingers through vibrotactile sensations on their skin. We evaluated our design with nine couples where the system was augmented with either a Skype audio call or a video connection. Our study showed that participants enjoyed their conversation more with the gloves, felt more emotionally connected, and experienced intimate moments together. Couples used the glove for shared actions, playful episodes, intimate touches, and to simply feel each other's presence. Video was important to aid couples in understanding each other's actions. Our results illustrate that designs focusing on physical touch over distance should be open to appropriation such that they can augment existing communication routines and technologies.

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Cited By

Stepanova EReicke B(2024)Intercorporeal Design: Dissolving Self-Other Dualism in Interaction DesignProceedings of the Halfway to the Future Symposium10.1145/3686169.3686206(1-9)Online publication date: 21-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3686169.3686206
Zhang LYuan YLi JCassinelli AZhu K(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
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3676534
Shakeri HYuan YAxtell BGeiskkovitch DNeustaedter C(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
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Index Terms

Flex-N-Feel: The Design and Evaluation of Emotive Gloves for Couples to Support Touch Over Distance
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Human computer interaction (HCI)

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cover image ACM Conferences

CSCW '17: Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing

February 2017

2556 pages

ISBN:9781450343350

DOI:10.1145/2998181

General Chairs:
Charlotte P. Lee
University of Washington
,
Steve Poltrock
Retired
,
Program Chairs:
Louise Barkhuus
Stockholm University and Cornell Tech
,
Marcos Borges
Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
,
Wendy Kellogg
IBM T.J. Watson Research Center

Copyright © 2017 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].

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Published: 25 February 2017

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CSCW '17

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CSCW '17: Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing

February 25 - March 1, 2017

Oregon, Portland, USA

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CSCW '17 Paper Acceptance Rate 183 of 530 submissions, 35%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 2,235 of 8,521 submissions, 26%

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CSCW '25

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Cited By

Stepanova EReicke B(2024)Intercorporeal Design: Dissolving Self-Other Dualism in Interaction DesignProceedings of the Halfway to the Future Symposium10.1145/3686169.3686206(1-9)Online publication date: 21-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3686169.3686206
Zhang LYuan YLi JCassinelli AZhu K(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
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3676534
Shakeri HYuan YAxtell BGeiskkovitch DNeustaedter C(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
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3643834.3661508
Hommes JKipp M(2024)Light Bridge: Improving social connectedness through ambient spatial interactionProceedings of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3643834.3660689(1658-1665)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3643834.3660689
Seo JLim HSuh BLee J(2024)I feel being there, they feel being together: Exploring How Telepresence Robots Facilitate Long-Distance Family CommunicationProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642305(1-18)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642305
Zhang NYu BHu JLi MAn P(2024)I'm not upset–I get it: Effects of co-workers' stress cues on help-seekers' social diction and empathy in telecommutingInternational Journal of Human-Computer Studies10.1016/j.ijhcs.2024.103218185(103218)Online publication date: May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2024.103218
Chan AQuek FHowell JLiu T(2024)Closing the Gap Between Long Distance Couples via Asynchronous Remote Touch CommunicationSocial Computing and Social Media10.1007/978-3-031-61312-8_1(3-16)Online publication date: 31-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-61312-8_1
Aljuneidi SGerstenberg RHassenzahl M(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
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Sparrow LRogerson M(2023)Lessons from Homebrewed Hybridity: Designing Hybrid Digital Boardgames for Distanced PlayProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36110227:CHI PLAY(45-72)Online publication date: 4-Oct-2023
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Leong JTeng YLiu XJun HKratz STham YMonroy-Hernández ASmith BVaish R(2023)Social Wormholes: Exploring Preferences and Opportunities for Distributed and Physically-Grounded Social ConnectionsProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36102087:CSCW2(1-29)Online publication date: 4-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3610208
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