Project description

High mobility and frequent moves pose a challenge for friendships. How do groups of friends who live in different places stay connected? Existing media such as WhatsApp or Zoom provide limited opportunities to feel close to one's own friends, while still requiring the users' complete attention. In the VREUNDE project, hybrid tools are to be created with which groups of friends can easily perform their social activities even over distance and thus create a feeling of connectedness as a group.

To this end, as a first step, existing communication patterns in friend groups will be surveyed in order to determine the needs for new tools: What activities do people want to share with their friends? How can verbal communication channels be enriched by low-threshold and interactive features? Answering these questions will provide a scientific understanding of the processes friend groups use to generate a sense of connectedness. Based on the results, initial tools will be developed in design workshops, which will then be tested by user groups. These groups will afterwards be systematically surveyed about their use of the tools and their experiences with them. In an iterative process, this information will be incorporated into the further development of the tools.

The goal is to create a toolbox with various smart objects from which users can choose from according to their needs.
These tools could be pillows, for example, which are connected to the pillows of friends and warm up or vibrate when touched by one person. The idea is to create awareness of the presence of their friends in everyday life without requiring exclusive attention and complicated instructions.

Cooperations

• TH Köln (University of Applied Sciences)

• ART+COM Studios