CoupleVIBE: mobile implicit communication to improve awareness for (long-distance) couples.

ABSTRACTLong-distance couples face considerable communication challenges in their relationships. Unlike collocated couples, long-distance couples lack awareness cues associated with physical proximity and must use technologies such as SMS or telephony to stay in sync. We posit that long-distance couples have needs that are not met by prevailing communication technologies, which require explicit action from the sender as well as the receiver. We built CoupleVIBE to explore the properties of an implicit messaging channel and observe how couples would use such a technology. CoupleVIBE is a mobile application that automatically pushes a user's location-information to her partner's mobile phone via vibrotactile cues. We present qualitative results of a four-week user study, studying how seven couples used CoupleVIBE. A key result is that CoupleVIBE's implicit communication modality operated as a foundation that helps keep couples in sync, with other modalities being brought into play when further interaction was needed.