Emotional Communication between Remote Couples - Exploring the Design of Wearable Ambient Displays.

We explore the potential of limited vocabulary wearable ambient displays and their preferred characteristics in communicating intimacy between couples at a distance. The research comprises two studies: a co-design workshop and a field study of the design concepts generated from the co-design workshops using low-fidelity prototypes. Our findings reveal that wearable ambient displays could potentially help to increase awareness and emotional connections between couples. A limited vocabulary display is considered as a complementary channel to a smartphone, supporting the communication of subtle and lightweight messages that the sender does not necessarily expect a response to. From the user studies, we identify the preferred characteristics, as well as the potential and challenges of low vocabulary wearable ambient displays.