Interaction design for supporting communication between Chinese sojourners

Martijn ten Bhömer*, Elise Van Den Hoven

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

In our global village, distance is not a barrier anymore for traveling. People experience new cultures and face accompanying difficulties in order to live anywhere. Social support can help these sojourners to cope with difficulties, such as culture shock. In this paper, we investigate how computer-mediated communication (CMC) tools can facilitate social support when living physically separated from loved-ones in different cultures. The goal is to understand the design considerations necessary to design new CMC tools. We studied communication practices of Chinese sojourners living in the Netherlands and the use of a technology probe with a novel video communication system. These results led to recommendations which can help designers to design interactive communication tools that facilitate communication across cultures. We conclude the paper with an interactive communication device called Circadian, which was designed based on these recommendations. We experienced the design recommendations to be abstract enough to leave space for creativity while providing a set of clear requirements which we used to base design decisions upon.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)145-157
Number of pages13
JournalPersonal and Ubiquitous Computing
Volume17
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jan 2013
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Computer-mediated communication
  • Cross-cultural communication
  • Culture shock
  • Design recommendations
  • Human-computer interaction
  • Interaction design

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