Inter-Family Messaging with Domestic Media Spaces

Abstract

Many family members have a need to stay connected with their loved ones when they are separated by distance. Technologies such as the phone or email help achieve this to some extent, but, many people still feel out of touch with their loved ones. We designed two domestic media spaces—The Family Window and Family Portals—to help distributed family members connect with remote families’ homes using ‘always-on’ video connections. In addition to this, both systems allowed family members to interact using handwritten messaging. Our chapter focuses on this latter functionality to explore the ways in which family members made use of the inter-family messaging features found within our domestic media space systems. Here we discuss both synchronous and asynchronous messaging and the nuances of public vs. private messaging between households. We conclude with a discussion of implications for inter-family messaging systems.