“More than a cliché”: Experiencing Hybrid Gifting in the Wild
Authors: 
Jocelyn Spence, 
Boriana Koleva, Steve Benford, Dimitrios Darzentas, Martin Flintham, Kevin Glover, Hanne Wagner, Rebecca Gibson, Emily-Clare ThornAuthors Info & Claims
Jocelyn Spence, Boriana Koleva, Steve Benford, Dimitrios Darzentas, Martin Flintham, Kevin Glover, Hanne Wagner, Rebecca Gibson, Emily-Clare ThornAuthors Info & ClaimsArticle No.: 55, Pages 1 - 31
Abstract
Gifting is socially and economically important. Studies of gifting physical objects have revealed motivations, values, and the tensions between them, while HCI research has revealed weaknesses of digital gifting and explored possibilities of hybrid gifting. We report an “in the wild” study of a hybrid chocolate gift deployed as a commercial product. Interviews reveal the experiences of receivers and givers, as well as the producer's friction points and tangible benefits. We reveal how in hybrid gifts the digital elevates the physical while the physical grounds the digital. We discuss how hybrid gifts bridge the tension between receiver-preference and relationship-signalling motivations, the need to further strengthen the exchange and reveal stages of hybrid gifting, and to manage the privacy of sensitive personal messages. We propose to extend the concept of hybrid wrapping to include a finer-grained interleaving of digital into complex packaging and multi-layered wrappings to create more holistic gifting experiences.
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Index Terms
- “More than a cliché”: Experiencing Hybrid Gifting in the Wild
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Published In
August 2023
614 pages
ISSN:1073-0516
EISSN:1557-7325
DOI:10.1145/3623486
- Editors:
- Kristina Höök,
- Kasper Hornbæk
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Association for Computing Machinery
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Publication History
Published: 12 September 2023
Online AM: 19 January 2023
Accepted: 15 August 2022
Revised: 11 July 2022
Received: 01 March 2022
Published in TOCHI Volume 30, Issue 4
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