為工作環境設計：賦予其情感與熟悉的溝通

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(1)國立交通大學應用藝術研究所. 碩士論文. 為工作環境設計：賦予其情感與熟悉的溝通. Designing for Emotional and Intimate Communication – Working Environment. 研究生黃可薰指導教授鄧怡莘教授. 中華民國九十五年七月.

(2) 為工作環境設計：賦予其情感與熟悉的溝通. Designing for Emotional and Intimate Communication – Working Environment. 研究生：黃可薰. Student Ko-Hsun Huang. 指導教授：鄧怡莘. Advisor Yi-Shin Deng. 國立交通大學應用藝術研究所碩士論文. A Thesis Submitted to Institute of Applied Arts College of Humanities and Social Sciences National Chiao Tung University in partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master in Design. July 2006 Hsinchu, Taiwan, Republic of China 中華民國九十五年七月.

(3) 中文摘要. 社會結構急遽變遷，而在辦公環境裡工作的人們，所面對的則是快速發展的資訊科技和工作方式。台灣是亞洲平均工作時數較長的一個區域，隨著科技進步，原本面對面的交談，已逐漸被網際網路等新興媒體所取代。工作上溝通的方式改變了，同事間實際的互動逐漸減少，而人際關係也較過去薄弱。即使人們在同樣的環境裡一起工作，也因為使用、依賴不同的溝通媒體，而出現孤立或是分群的問題。日常的溝通從真實的世界轉向虛擬的資訊空間中發展。同事們越來越不熟悉彼此，如何增進他們的人際關係變成一個重要的課題。也因此，對於長時間相處、一起工作的人們而言，提供一個具體並且感性，充斥著親密感、彼此存在感的工作環境是相當重要的。本研究中，實地訪查的對象將是科技公司研發部門裡的工程師，他們負責開發新的科技製程或是軟體程式撰寫。他們目前所面臨的溝通問題，以及同事們在溝通中所在乎的一些細微感覺和需要，將由訪談和探針日誌法獲得。在了解其辦公室文化之後，不同領域專家和先前受訪的工程師將一起參與一個工作坊。就如何增進人際關係此一議題，討論各種潛在的解決辦法。並考慮如何適當的運用新興科技，來擴充人們在溝通中的知覺向度。隨著工作坊發展出來的各種概念，本研究將提出數種有著熟悉感介面的原型，除了作為聯繫人們資訊溝通的媒體，亦試圖去增進同事之間較感性的互動。隨後，再經由場域測試，評估設計概念是否符合人們在工作環境中的需求。與他人的互動和情感聯繫使得人們感到寬慰和滿足，也使得人們的生活更有意義和完整。藉由對溝通脈絡深入的了解，若能在群體間傳遞彼此的存在感，似乎能使得人們彼此更為親密；而本研究所發展的溝通媒體，亦刺激了同事彼此之間更多的人際互動，進而探討人們的默契和不同感知的科技運用。. 關鍵字: 社會運算, 脈絡知覺, 社會互動, 熟悉感介面, 參與式設計, 探針日誌法, 場域測試. i.

(4) ABSTRACT The structures of community are acutely changing, and people in an office environment face the rapid development of information technology and workflows. In Taiwan, a region with the longest working hours in Asia, social interactions between colleagues are gradually disappearing since most of the communications related to work is changing from in-person conversation to mediated e-mail through the Internet. This makes people in the same working environment either closely grouped or further isolated by choosing different web-based communication media. By degrees the daily communications take place in the virtual information space, rather than in a real world. For the colleagues become by and by estranged from each other, how to promote their relationship is significant. Therefore, creating an embodied office environment with sense of emotional presence, intimacy, or closeness is definitely essential to people who work long hours together. In this research, the field of study focuses on the Research & Development department, the engineers who explore and develop new processing technologies or system programs in Taiwan’s high-tech companies. The communicating situations people are confronted with and the subtle senses or inherent needs in the social interactions between those colleagues sharing the same working place and communication channel are attained by dyad interviews and probe diaries. After investigating those office cultures, a workshop is held with numerous engineers and designers from different disciplines, including industrial design, computer science and information engineering, mechanical engineering, visual communication. Those experts and the informants of earlier interviews have discussed the potential solution to enhance the interpersonal relationship in the working environment and consider a better application of emerging technology to broaden the directions of perception in communication. With the ideas out of the workshop, prototypes as communication installations with intimate and emotional interface are developed for various working space not only to mediate people’s. ii.

(5) informational communication but to evoke the emotional contact between colleagues. Then, through field trial and reviewing processes, design concepts to meet the needs of connecting people in the same office are explored. The interactions and relationships with others are expected to make people relieved and satisfied, as well as make peoples’ life meaningful and fulfilling. Through profound comprehension of the communication context, to convey an awareness of the presence of the community would connect them closely. In addition to that, the communication media developed in this research could also be expanded to increase the social interactions between people working together, and the application of technology to make people attuned to their colleagues in varies sense will also be discussed.. Key words: Social Computing, Context Awareness, Social Interaction, Intimate Interface, Participatory Design, Probe Diaries, Field Trials. iii.

(6) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to the engineers, my classmates, and those who participated in this research, shared their experience of lives, and offered great opinions on the design issues. The previous study of probe dairies and interviews, and the design process, including the workshop and the field trial, couldn’t be completed without their enthusiasm. Thanks sincerely my supervisor, Professor Yi-Shin Deng, who always gave me nice suggestions and enabled me to overcome the difficulties and each kind of setback throughout the research. I specially thank Professor Jiunde Lee and Professor Ming-Huang Lin for their essential recommendations. Thanks also to Chia-Cheng Liu and Hua-Min Chang for their constructive suggestions. Finally, I am grateful to my dear families for their firmly support and encouragement in these years.. iv.

(7) CONTENT Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Background................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Motivations.................................................................................................................... 2 1.3 Objectives...................................................................................................................... 3 1.4 Limitations..................................................................................................................... 4 1.5 Outline of Thesis........................................................................................................... 5 Chapter 2. LITERARY REVIEWS......................................................................................................... 6 2.1 Technology and Social Relationship........................................................................... 6 2.2 Connectedness............................................................................................................... 8 2.2.1 Issues........................................................................................................................ 8 2.2.2 Context Awareness.................................................................................................. 11 2.2.3 Intimate and Emotional Interface............................................................................ 13 2.3 Research Methodology................................................................................................. 16 2.3.1 Dyad Interview........................................................................................................ 16 2.3.2 Probe Diaries........................................................................................................... 17 2.3.3 Participatory Design................................................................................................ 19 2.3.4 Field Trials............................................................................................................... 20 2.4 Summary....................................................................................................................... 21 Chapter 3. METHODOLOGY................................................................................................................. 23 3.1 Research Structure....................................................................................................... 24 3.1.1 Investigation............................................................................................................ 24 3.1.2 Concept Design........................................................................................................ 26 3.2 Research Issues............................................................................................................. 26 3.3 Recruiting...................................................................................................................... 29 3.4 Participatory Design Process. ..................................................................................... 31 3.4.1 Workshop................................................................................................................. 32 3.4.2 Design and Evaluation............................................................................................. 33. v.

(8) Chapter 4. FINDINGS............................................................................................................................... 34 4.1 Interviews...................................................................................................................... 34 4.1.1 Factors in Social Interactions................................................................................... 34 4.1.2 Work and Leisure..................................................................................................... 36 4.1.3 Communication Media............................................................................................ 37 4.2 Probe Diaries................................................................................................................. 38 4.2.1 Routine Activities.................................................................................................... 38 4.2.2 Communication Issues............................................................................................. 39 4.2.3 Working Environment............................................................................................. 40 4.3 Summary........................................................................................................................ 41 Chapter 5. PARTICIPATORY DESIGN................................................................................................ 43 5.1 Design Concept.............................................................................................................. 43 5.2 Prototyping.................................................................................................................... 45 5.2.1 Prototype Design...................................................................................................... 45 5.2.2 Scenario Test............................................................................................................ 48 5.2.3 Preliminary Estimations........................................................................................... 50 5.3 Field Trial.......................................................................................................................... 51 5.4 Review................................................................................................................................ 53 5.4.1 Usage Circumstances................................................................................................... 54 5.4.2 Perceptions of the Media............................................................................................. 55 5.4.3 Customs and Trends..................................................................................................... 56 Chapter 6. CONCLUTIONS..................................................................................................................... 58 REFERENCE.......................................................................................................................... 60 Appendix Appendix A: The Research Script for Dyad Interview............................................................... 64 Appendix B: The Research Script for Probe Diary..................................................................... 68 Appendix C: The Research Plan for Field Trials........................................................................ 73 Appendix D: The Introduction for the Participants of Field Trials............................................. 78. vi.

(9) FIGURE CONTENT Figure 1 Iso-phone................................................................................................................................ 10 Figure 2 The relationship between social presence, awareness, and connectedness...................... 11 Figure 3 Habitat.................................................................................................................................... 13 Figure 4 Left: Air, right: Passage........................................................................................................ 15 Figure 5 A probe diary......................................................................................................................... 23 Figure 6 The research structure of this thesis.................................................................................... 25 Figure 7 A probe diary includes two parts......................................................................................... 29 Figure 8 A mind map of the colleagues’ working cultures............................................................... 32 Figure 9 One engineer’s Diary. He wrote down the sentiments on communicating...................... 39 Figure10 A working environment map drawn by Michelle, a female software engineer.............. 40 Figure11 A bulletin board.................................................................................................................... 44 Figure12 Linking Village..................................................................................................................... 47 Figure13 Tree of Sound Track............................................................................................................ 47 Figure14 Fruity Air.............................................................................................................................. 48 Figure15 Testing scenarios with Tree of Sound Track..................................................................... 49 Figure16 Testing scenarios with Fruity Air....................................................................................... 50 Figure17 Field trial in a high-tech company...................................................................................... 52. TABLE CONTENT Table 1 The outline of dyad interview in the thesis........................................................................... 28 Table 2 Profiles of interviewees........................................................................................................... 30 Table 3 Profiles of working environment........................................................................................... 30 Table 4 Prototypes................................................................................................................................ 46. vii.

(10) 1. INTRODUCTION The culture, social structures, and interpersonal contact are acutely changing with the rapid development of science and information technology. In Taiwan, numerous people gradually get used to the novel digital media, and most of the communications are changing from in-person conversations to mediated mails or messages through the Internet and mobile telecommunication. The modernization of an office also changes the original job functions, and people in such working environment not only have to accommodate themselves with the tensional workflows with these new scientific and technical applications, but tend to get closely grouped or isolated by different choice of communication media.. 1.1. Background. In a modern country like Taiwan, people get used to and adore some kind of life style. That life style seems to bring a distance between people since the new media through the Internet achieved by the emerging technology already changes their social manner. That distance is by and by disappearing and a sense of presence with their friends or family members becomes irrelevant to their embodied sensation. Besides, this artificial presence not only symbolizes an equidistant perception of one from others but neutralizes the people’s inherent recognition of distance (Moles 1988). Meanwhile, those opulent accessible sources of communication and interaction much surpass what people probably use in their whole lives, and overflow people’s work place or home environment. People start getting used to communication depending on these new media, such as the Internet, wireless, or some kinds of mobile telecommunication. They become standoffish and unsociable since they turn into grouped or isolated by habitually using media. Therefore, an unexpected phenomenon comes out from the advent of novel communication devices. Even in a crowded workplace, the different usages of communication media could estrange people from their coworkers, and relationships between the colleagues. 1.

(11) are frailer than those when they had some kind of embodied touch or conversations. In a case of Research and Development (R&D) Department in high-tech companies in Taiwan, the engineers who explore and develop new processing technology or system programs get huge stress and work at fast tempo. As a result, their work might be creeping into their leisure time. Besides, the division of labor is explicit and project cooperation sometimes means to hold a team discussion once a week, but for the most part the engineers could finish their work independently. The airy interactions of coworkers seem less likely, and connections between the colleagues are quite slight actually (Diani, 1986; Tang, 2001). It is believed as a fundamental need of humans to contact with others from time to time. Moreover, the interactions and relationships with others are expected not only to make humans feel consoled and satisfied, but enrich humans’ lives. Recently, lots of research groups are devoted to enlarging the technology possibility to mediate people at a remote place by intimating interface or background awareness (Agamanolis et al. 2002; Vetere et al. 2005). However, these intrinsic needs such as subtle significance of presence or concern between people are also essential to who work in a long period of time together. Extending their research, it’s been tried to conceive an emotional and familiar working environment of technologies and intimate experiences that build, maintain, and enhance the colleagues’ relationships in a new way.. 1.2. Motivations. Along with the development of science and new technology, people are gradually used to the rapid changes of the communication media surrounding them. Especially in the regions, like Taiwan, where the digital products have gained popularity, people’s culture, social structure, interpersonal activities, and values might be profoundly influenced. The social relationships in the community are therefore affected by those emerging inventions, and are needed to give a serious consideration and an inspection.. 2.

(12) In the R&D department, engineers who work with huge stress in the high-tech companies do not have too much in-personal conversations with their colleagues for the explicit division of labour, and become isolated or grouped by the media they tend to use. That is to say, the colleagues who share the same workplace become estranged. Therefore, how to improve the gradually aloof interpersonal relationships between colleagues and make the atmosphere more cordial in their workplace is vital importance to them. Considering the issues other fields have absorbed in, the development of new communication device to enrich people’s lives could be expanded in many ways. For instance, the research field of the multimodal interface is on purpose to coordinate people’s different senses, and the design issue of intimate interface is trying to express the artifact itself with some close and innermost experiences. The ways to enrich people’s lives deeply changed by the technology are quite urgent in a today’s office. Therefore, one of the main issues in this research to be discussed is if the combination of these new concepts and applications of technology could create a friendly embodied working environment for the coworkers or develop a new communicating platform to stimulate the colleagues' interactions. In addition, based on the understanding of coworkers’ fundamental needs in communicating, we sought to maintain the original association and friendly interactions between colleagues and to better the ambiance of their working place.. 1.3. Objectives. Today, with the advent of the emerging technology, the communication media change various phases of people’s lives, including social manners and social interpersonal structures. In the research, via the thorough investigation into people’s interaction and connection in their working place, the intrinsic need such as a subtle significance of presence, fundamental senses or feelings, and different interpersonal contact between the colleagues could be explored. Another various aspects of communicating are also examined and extended in a workshop, and those findings collected could create a lot of ideas for the design concepts of the new. 3.

(13) communication media. The main purpose of this research is to address on the development of design concepts and different types of communication installations to promote the intimate association of colleagues and to conceive some emotional concern. It seems very likely to increase the cordial interactions by the findings from the investigation of this research and the workshop with previous study participants and various experts of different fields. In addition, we attempted to broaden the directions of people’s perception in communication with an appropriate application of science and technology. The usage of communication is also evaluated in a workplace, and gives some ideas about the possibilities of communication technology for a future design. Besides, conducting a field trail reveals the real pictures of usage to communicate among colleagues, which might also be influenced or promoted by the prototypes. In sum, the goal of the research is to find the ways to enhance the inherent relationships between coworkers and to make an emotional working environment comfort and to address some suggestions of the emerging technology applications and communication media design in the future.. 1.4. Limitations. Nowadays, the ways to promote the relationships of friends or farther strangers by evolving the feelings of proximity and intimacy, or to apply new media to convey impressions of presence and togetherness between people are much essential issues. However, the advanced new technologies also change how the colleagues communicate each other. The occurrence of isolation or solitude between colleagues turns up even if they are in the same workplace. In this research, it is focused on the engineers who work together over a long period of time in the R&D department of high-tech companies. The reasons that make the connections between these colleagues weaker are what it is aimed to comprehend. Hence, the research is. 4.

(14) mainly limited to the investigation of the background awareness in social activities of these colleagues who work in the same place, the various phases of daily communications and the interpersonal relationship. This study mainly focuses on the promotion of colleagues’ relationship, but the interactions between friends or family members out of the workplace are not examined in this study. The design concepts for appropriate communication media to enhance the relationships of coworkers in the workplace are based on the sensational dimensions explored previously in the research and the outcomes of the workshop discussions. In the part of prototype design and trial, it is our aims to find out the activities those engineers get used to and a better interface to convey the intimacy and emotion. Owing to the limitation of time, the period of the field trial might be insufficient for exactitude. The usability and efficiency of operations and technology application in practice will not be emphasized in prototyping.. 1.5. Outline of Thesis. This thesis consists of six chapters. Chapter one, introduction, states the research background, motivations, objectives, and limitations. Chapter two, literature reviews, compares results from the researches in several different fields, such as human connectedness, including social relationship, emotional and intimate interface, the methodologies of user experience research, and participatory design. Chapter three, methodology, presents the research plan and the methods for research activities. In chapter four, the data of the user’s experience research are analyzed and interpreted, and the findings collected are also included to assist in designing. Chapter five, participatory design, shows the process and the outcomes of the participatory design, and the design concepts of future communication devices are brought in through the field trials and reviewing processes. Chapter six concludes the summary of this thesis and some suggestions are provided for further studies on promotion design of embodied communication media.. 5.

(15) 2. LITERARY REVIEWS Interactions and relationships with others, which are essential needs for human beings, make people content and feel relieved or inspired. The development of technology has brought people convenience in communicating, such as mobile telecommunication and the Internet. That signifies a feeling of equidistance of everyone to everyone else and truly supports connections between one and his/her friends or family members at a remote place. However, these emerging media also influence the ways of social interactions, and bring some obsessions about recognition, but might have some effects of isolation on people. Lots of research groups are studying for the issue of people’s association and the way they’ve mediated through new technology. The way to conceive a new genre of technology and experiences, or a sense of intimacy and closeness to enhance the relationships in new way has been extensively discussed. In this chapter, the communicating phenomenon in today’s society and several different aspects of human connectedness are reviewed and compared. In addition, the methodologies related to this research would also be introduced.. 2.1. Technology and Social Relationship. In an age of communicational opulence, people are aspiring to a way of life in which the distance existing between them and is becoming irrelevant to their realm of consciousness. A sense of presence built by technology signifies a feeling of equidistance of every from everyone else, and from one to any world event (Moles 1988). In other words, this artificial presence with friends or family members becomes unrelated to people’s embodied sensation. It neutralizes the people’s inherent recognition of distance. The interpersonal connections could be supported by the technology media. In addition to that, people might have at their disposal more sources of communication and interaction than they were ever able to use in the relatively short lifetime. Moles had also emphasized the fragility of this complex world continuously changed by technology between the abstract and the concrete. Technology. 6.

(16) application must be required to conform to the programmed sensualization of the environment and reliability. The abundant accessible sources also overflow people’s lives surroundings, including their work place or home environment. In a modern region like Taiwan, many people start getting used to rely on those new media, such as the Internet, wireless or mobile technology, which supply a convenient communicating platform for the social contact. However, these emerging media not only change people’s social manners, but also make them easily grouped or isolated by their customs and the different choices of the media. In such working environment, an unexpected phenomenon comes out with the advent of these novel devices. It seems that people could be estranged from their colleagues by the different usages of communication media even if they work in a crowded workplace. With a variety of technical development since 1980s, office automation has also influenced different phases of the coworkers’ activities (Diani, 1986). Even if office automation is a great liberating agent to give many technical and economic advantages, it is also as a device to reduce human freedom. What it has affected covers the changes in tasks, job profiles, relations among colleagues, organizational structure, and role of management. With information technology, most operations, procedures, and act at work become abstract and solitude, and the division of labour becomes extremely explicit. Especially in the case of today’s high-tech companies in Taiwan, the project cooperation sometimes means to hold a team discussion once a week, but for the most part the engineers could finish their work alone without any interactions with their colleagues (Tang, 2001). Some great influences come with technology are the cognitive pressure and accelerating tempos. Given the formalization and abstraction of the work processes inside programs, most engineers are now more isolated and independent. The airy interactions of coworkers are not too much, and connections between the colleagues are quite slight (Tang, 2001). Some kind of silent revolutions are now producing profound changes of social interactions of coworkers in an office as it affects the self-identification of individuals and groups. In addition, since the workers with huge stress in a long period of time, they might mix up work and leisure time.. 7.

(17) The mental loads of coworkers might have direct influences upon the atmosphere of the workplace and lead to an interpersonal isolation.. 2.2. Connectedness. A variety of different factors apart from family and friends, might have forced people to attain a balance in the kinds of relationships that people need to have with others. It is believed as a fundamental need of humans to contact with others, and these interactions with others are expected not only to make humans consoled and satisfied, but enrich humans’ lives. Recently, a lot research groups are devoted to exploring the inherent needs of people in communication and trying to enlarge the technology possibilities to mediate people at a remote place by intimate interface or background awareness (Agamanolis et al. 2002; Vetere et al. 2005). The issues of human connectedness have been reviewed and compared.. 2.2.1. Issues. The social interactions and relationships with others are such the fundamental needs of people. They make humans consoled and satisfied, and enrich everyone’s life. However, for the impact of customs and trends at a societal level, such as the widespread use of technologies that has caused isolating effects, the Human Connectedness research group have indicated that these new problems in social relations might jeopardize a human’s mental and physical well-being, and the health of the communities and civilizations (Agamanolis et al. 2002). Human Connectedness research group, a European research partner of MIT Media Lab, have been devoted to exploring the issue of human relationship and the aspects of mediation supported by technology. In a succession of their researches, they tried to conceive the possibility of new forms for social interaction to maintain and enhance the relationships. To this end, the group had an insight into the perception and activities in communicating, such as. 8.

(18) background awareness of presence and togetherness, or a sense of intimacy and closeness. In addition, they also sought a way to support collaboration between different groups of people and new forms of cultural exchanges. Based on the understanding of sociological and psychological factors in their studies, the technological frameworks were designed to reflect the needs and sensibilities of people with the expectation of the future, such as the infinite bandwidth and processing-rich computing environments. There are several significant themes discussed in their researches, like background awareness, social networking, cultural exchange, shared experience, slow communication, wearable computing, and intimate interface. Among the themes, background awareness and intimate interface seem to be all on purpose to enrich people’s communicating interactions, and then to promote their social relationships. These approaches exactly conform to the main intention of this research, so both two themes would be introduced separately and more particularly in the following sections. One of the special cases in their researches, such as Iso-phone (Auger et al, 2003), is a telecommunication device that builds a slow telecommunication space of heightened purity and focus by blocking out peripheral sensory stimulation and distraction. A substantial emphasis conferred here is the widespread usage of mobile phone. That has led to telecommunicating in the vain pursuit of an efficient rather than a qualitative manner. It abstracts conversation from specific social context, and lack of discretion and sensitivity of the user to decide if the circumstances are suitable for communicating. To redress the awkwardness and imbalance, the device of Iso-phone has a purpose to allow the users to concentrate solely on the conversation for quality and depth of a singular, submersion, telephonic experience, and to alter the contemporary preoccupation with efficiency and multifunction (Figure 1).. 9.

(19) Figure 1. Iso-phone: a telecommunication device providing a conversation of the phone and the floating tank. http://web.media.mit.edu/~stefan/hc/projects/isophone/. Another particular issue in communicating is shared experience. It might evoke the collective experiences and memories of people and change itself as people’s social identification with others. In the case of tunA (Bassoli, 2002), a common handhold music player becomes a mobile radio station by wireless protocol. It provides users with the opportunity to share the music currently listening while moving around, and promotes a sense of background awareness of the surrounding physical environment. Listening to music turns from an individual and isolating experience into a fun and socializing experience. Relative to this aspect, HP Laboratory research team believed and tried to demonstrate that an indirect experience evoked by a product is very important to many users (Hull, 2002). In a case study of a museum, they found that the engaging experience constituted by challenge, social interactions, or sensation with a drama, makes people’s lives more relaxing and pleased. In addition, they believed that users would be able to create their own contexts for experiences using some new technology. It may influence how the emerging technology be rapidly adopted and shaped towards its eventual meaning and value.. 10.

(20) 2.2.2. Context Awareness. Dourish and Bellotti described awareness as “an understanding of the activities of others, which provides as context for your activity (Dourish et al., 1992).” Rettie then elucidated that “awareness is almost a simile for consciousness --- its meaning is derived from the object of the awareness...” Awareness here is used in the sense of experiencing what is believed to be external perception, synchronous or asynchronous (Rettie, 2003). Besides, background awareness is a delicate form of connection between close partners, such as a connotative sense of presence or a subtle perception of each other’s moods and emotional deeds. Awareness of daily cycle, routines, or presence is especially important in relationships among family members, close friends, and coworkers. This awareness supports people to convey reassurance and a sense of context for communication, and also forms a bond built between people by background synchronization of their rhythms (Patel at el., 2003). Rettie also sketched logical relationships between the concepts of awareness, social presence, and connectedness (Figure 2). He found that the experience of connectedness could occur in many situations. The subtle perceptions of other’s body movement, voice, and presence, often evoke people’s experience of connectedness with others. In addition, an old post card or stored text message in a mobile phone might be accompanied by a feeling of connectedness without direct awareness of another person, although the meaning embodied in the experience is derived from that person. Hence, not only the awareness of a person, but the awareness of objects could create the experience of connectedness.. Figure 2. The relationship between social presence, awareness, and connectedness (Rettie, 2003). 11.

(21) Gaver described technologies of peripheral awareness could give information for particular work activities or relationships to provide a feeling of presence of remote lovers or intimate friends. He tried to explore new sensory and interaction possibilities to extend notions of peripheral awareness to new domains, and addressed a wider range of emotional relationship (Gaver, 2002). In translation of Vetere et al’s article, Gaver identifies three typical characteristics of awareness technologies in the designs: Making use of evocative materials, Making mapping of literary usage rather than didactic metaphors, and Having a unique physicality as a more poetic real feature (Vetere, 2005). The Portholes project of Xerox EuroPARC has already demonstrated that awareness can be supported across distance (Dourish, 1992). The distributed work group could be supported by media space through access to information with general awareness. In their project, the prototype could display the several different scenes of work groups at different locations together in a window at approximately the same time, and provide a view of one another in a daily work environment. It has also been found that awareness may be a useful basis for community access and for community building. In sum, the awareness can contribute a shared sense of community, and lead to informal interactions, spontaneous connections, and the development of shared cultures (Markopoulos, 2004). In figure 3, Habitat is another design for background awareness of daily routines and rhythms between distant family members or lovers. The system consists of two networked tables at relative sites of these family members’ kitchens, and each table integrates a computer, a RFID tag reader, and a video projector. All of the objects that might be placed on the table, such as cups and books, have their own unique RFID Tags. When some object is placed on one table, the other table would display a graphical representation of that object. When the items are removed, their representations on the other tables would fade away slowly. Since awareness plays an essential role in human relationships, the installation is on purpose to explore the potential of using household furniture as a network of distributed ambient display applications, which also conveys this kind of awareness between close family members or. 12.

(22) lovers at a remote space (Patel at el., 2003).. Figure 3. Habitat: a range of connected furniture for awareness of daily routines and rhythms between distant family members. http://web.media.mit.edu/~stefan/hc/projects/habitat/. 2.2.3. Intimate and Emotional Interface. Since communication and computing technology is progressive at accelerated pace, humans hardly to get with it. Hence, people desire an appearance good to use and an intimate connection in relationship between humans and objects. By extension of “control intimacy” from electronic musical instruments analysis (Moore, 1988), Fels suggests that the ‘intimacy’ is “a measure of subjective match between the behavior of an object and the control of that object.” Here, the object could be a person, a device, or some entity. Moreover, High Intimacy indicates that an object seems to be an extension of the person, satisfaction is derived from interacting with the object, and emotional expression spontaneously flows (Fels et al., 2004). Human Communication Technology Research Laboratory (HCT lab) is absorbed in new human computer interaction technology and theories of embodiment and intimacy between humans and computers. The research group are trying to combine emerging technology, multimodal (Oviatt, 2002), and multimedia systems, with the enlargements of psychology, sociology and art, to enhance the communication abilities between people, or between people and machines. In the opinion of HCT lab, intimacy is an essential factor for the interface design. In addition, the research group also indicated that the contributing factors of intimacy. 13.

(23) could be consistency, responsiveness, usefulness, learning ability, functionality, and so on (Fels et al., 2004). Horton and Wohl (1956) have described the bond of intimacy in the personality programs. They’ve found that an illusion of intimacy could be created through the duplication of the gestures, conversational style, and milieu of an informal face-to-face gathering. In some of TV shows or radio programs, hosts/hostesses usually give impressions that they are responding to and sustaining the contributions to the invisible interlocutors, and an interaction, a dialogue would be created between them and the audience. Horton has called this as “an illusion of intimacy,” since the relationship is actually inevitably one-side and the reciprocity between the two might be suggested. In this case, the technical devices of the media themselves have been exploited to create illusions of intimacy between the hosts/hostesses and the audience. Intimacy has been mediated through symbols of attention such as flowers, missives and love letters for ages. Today, emerging technologies, like mobile phone and the Internet, is regularly manipulated to help people maintain the intimate relationships with family members or friends living far away. Kaye and Goulding (2004) used the notion of critical technical practice to provide a theoretical construct to understand if there is a problem for couples who try to maintain a feeling of intimacy but live far away from each other. The work of Kaye and Goulding fits the three typical characteristics of Gaver about awareness technologies. They used soft silicone as evocative materials for hand holding, exploited non-didactic metaphors and had unique physicality of an egg’s shape and texture. Vetere et al. (2005) put their attention on phenomena that are recognizably intimate, as expressions of tenderness, acts of devotion and habit of demonstrable affection. They argued the inadequacy of current technologies which support the social and personal needs in connection. They used cultural probes and technology provocation to comprehend the contextual of people’s intimate lives, and gave several innovation design concepts for communication of emotion to maintain intimacy at a distance. Similarly Ogawa et al. (2005) also focused on the scenario where two intimate persons live. 14.

(24) in distant places, and developed Small Connection communication media to convey faint information such as light, wind and touch through the use of a robot technology (Figure 4).. Figure 4. Left: “Air” communicates a feeling of presence to a distant partner through the light. A pair of lamps would be kept by the close friends or family members at different places. Since one of the lamps is turned on by touch, the other one would light up, too. Right: “Passage” is a close proximity media space to create a connection between people in different cities or cultures. http://web.media.mit.edu/~stefan/hc/projects/passages/. Their viewpoint is how to propose media for communication between two persons and let them have a feeling of each other’s presence through a simple communication installation with tangible signs and intimate interfaces. Including the concepts of ambient media, tangible interfaces, intimate technology and robot technology, their work broke down the common communication media forms of vision and hearing and extended the possibility of communication media to convey casual feelings, moods, presence, and atmosphere. Another special case of intimate design project is Passage of Human Connectedness group (Bitton et al., 2006). It is a very particular design for media space, integrating multiple types of sensual media to connect distant places and groups of people. The significance of this installation is its intention which not only provides an intimate entry of different cities, communities, and cultures, but creates unusual relationships with strangers in different locations. Not like a departed media space design, this research team developed an engaging visual system to allow passers-by to approach extremely close to the interactive screen surface. Since a passer-by walks through the installation, the silhouette of his/ her body would be reflected on the screen. When this local participant moves in front of this media installation, the viewer could see more of the scene of the remote counterparts. Meanwhile, a silhouette of the passer-by could become an engaging and intimate interface to touch and interact with a. 15.

(25) stranger far away (Figure 4).. 2.3. Research Methodology. In the following sections, the methodologies related to this research include interviews, probe diaries, participatory design activities and field trials, which would be introduced and compared.. 2.3.1. Dyad Interview. The differences between several familiar qualitative methods, such as focus group, several types of interviews, and ethnography methods, have been early introduced by Ireland (2003). A traditional one-to-one interview has been generally used by most researchers especially about design evaluation. One person would be interviewed alone by a researcher with a tightly scripted or a loose outline. This kind of interview is ideal for understanding the thought, sentiments, or reflections of individuals about a topic or a design with less concern for the possible influence on others. Meanwhile, the individual interview might be appropriate for some issues involved in personal privacy. In this research, the qualitative research methods are conducted in the primary stage of this research to profoundly uncover the connotation of people’s experiences in their communicating activities, and to extend the innovative and precise perspectives on human connectedness. In opposition to individual interviews, the dyad interview is essential research method in previous studies. In dyad interview, a moderator would follow an outline or lightly scripted guidelines to interview two persons who are friends as a pair. The procedure for dyad interviews is not such exact as that for individual interviews, and the duration of dyad interview is much longer. Dyad interviews, or “friendship pairs” interviews, are a powerful. 16.

(26) forum to explore issues which are difficult for people to articulate their opinions and at the same time to make people interviewed feel comfortable and relaxed because they are companied by their friends (Ireland, 2003). Since the two friends are interviewed as a pair, the canvass would be more animated, insightful, and very candid. The interviewees might be reminded or prompted by each other, and different aspects of some issues could be extended. Furthermore, a significant merit of a dyad interview is that it can reflect the true interactions between the two interviewees. That is quite helpful when the investigation on social relationships is conducted and communication issues are discussed.. 2.3.2. Probe Diaries. A diary methodology is a self-documentation in the social sciences-- a common method of ethnography through sampling and analysis of diaries recorded by respondents (DeLongis et al., 1992; Koskinen, 2002). And its process and result are often used in culture probes (Gaver et al., 1999; Horst et al., 2004). A traditional diary is a structured self-report used in home economics, business studies, pedagogy, field studied and historical researches. Typically each page of it is similar to a questionnaire, and the respondents have to fill each page at regular intervals in a long period of research time. It is an experience sampling method, and respondents have to recode their cognitions, emotions, or activities. A diary as a research instrument could be applied to a brief or a profile of a participant, or could be a pilot study of an indefinite issue. It is also portable for a respondent to carry and record. Besides, there are several merits of diaries to support a research outside a lab: To increase the validity of aggregation and demonstration of multiple indicators, To reduce recall error in self-reports and experiments, and To assist in the non-access fields.. 17.

(27) In addition, compared with other field observation, to use diaries is much efficient and low-priced (Koskinen, 2002). On the other hand, ethnomethodology (Garfinkle, 1967) is the study of the ways in which people make sense of their social world. Ethnomethodologists assume that the social order is illusory, potentially chaotic, and a coherent pattern constructed in the minds of social actors with a series of sense impressions and experiences they confront. For this reason, Garfinkle developed methods in the past that 'breach' or 'break' the everyday routines of people’s lives and observe their reactions to reveal and to interpret people’s inherent activity principles to maintain the normal flow of life in social interactions. Extending several different ethnography methods, Gaver (1999) conceived culture probes integrating the concept of ethnomethodology and the diary methodology, towards visual self-documentation for design. The researchers provide participants with several different tools, such as diaries, post cards, digital cameras, or PDAs, and also ask them to record in a period of time or fulfill some tasks. These tools might irritate participants’ lives but incite them to reinterpret their experiences and impressions. Hence, the researchers could comprehend people’s needs and values and have an insight into the context of their lives and cultures. At times, the researchers could deliberate upon some issues in a field, where is private and non-access to entering for long term investigation. Since it is not sufficient for the researchers to comprehend the whole context, conducting the interviews, culture probes and diaries might be efficient to use. In the case of high-tech companies, the researchers are not allowed to enter engineers’ actual working offices to do field observation, and it is also forbidden to use a camera, a video, an audio recorder, or any recording device to record engineers’ lives, since the advanced high-tech research and development of a company are confidentially protected. Therefore, to perceive the real interactions and fundamental needs between the occupied high-tech engineers in communicating context, probe diaries were decided to use.. 18.

(28) 2.3.3. Participatory Design. Gibson (1982) and Norman (1988) ever mentioned that the perceived and actual fundamental properties of things would affect the possible usage of things, and furthermore, the pith of ‘functional analysis’ (Löwgren, 2000) is to find out the needed and desired aspects of an artifact. Gedenryd (1982) and Schön (1993) also emphasized that the problem setting should be done with the objects in a study since the potential usage and meaning of the product in a future situation may abound out of freedom and uncertainty. Besides, the empathy of users could be an inquiry into a purpose. Product designers and developers detected the benefits from direct consumer feedbacks, and launched into a new qualitative user-centered approach, to which consumers or objects of study could participate. In addition, they work upon the design through out the whole product development process, and then could involve in making consistency between what they thought and what consumers reflected (Sanders, 1994). In order to meet the needs and desires of users, at the initial stage of problem setting in a research, several methods, such as interviews, field observations, focus groups, or preceding introduced culture probes are commonly used to explore the issues in truly usage situations. Then, in the design prototyping sections, workshops with the development methods like brain storming would be carried out. Sometimes development panel, a kind of representative group, would be asked to work with the designers and researchers to make a collage or prototype. On the other hand, co-design method (Sander, 2000; Westerlund et al, 2003) is also considered as a kind of participatory design. Not only the objects in a study participate and influence the whole design process, but the experts and scholars of different disciplines, such as ethnography, psychology, computer science, industrial design, and interaction design, would investigate together and give their own opinions on the design issues. Westerlund et al. (2003) programmed such a process find out the specific problems in a field and get hold of the reasonable and meaningful design ideas from these different field experts.. 19.

(29) If an artifact is meaningful, it would be determined by a well usage, fitting into the existing environment, or other memorable perceptions. Therefore, It is crucial to gain the opinions from users and experts together, and then to have the stimulation in real settings to discover users’ needs and desires.. 2.3.4. Field Trials. Usability tests with user involvement made beforehand sometimes could not manifest the real situations where people will use the products. Even if ethnographic user research methods, which Contextual Inquiry (Beyer et al., 1998) and others (Ireland, 2003) used at the beginning of the development process, could give some ideas about the usage of the current technology. The methods also provide the values people may already have, but they hardly anticipate in completely new technologies or to unprecedented media. Most field studies in work related to environment are effective to explore some essential findings for redesigning or product development. However, such field investigations or field estimations invariably need much time, costs, and efforts (Gaver, et al., 1999; Browne et al., 2001; Jääskö et al., 2003). Until people use the products actually in their own environments, designers or researchers wouldn’t comprehend on the possible meanings of new product concepts. Mäkelä, et al. (2000) described the significance and effect of field trials. They stated that field trial methods, prototypes had better to be tested in a real field, which helps researchers or designers to gain the unanticipated product concepts in a real setting. In a design development process, field trials not only give a way to evaluate if the design matches the users’ requirements and perceptions, but reflect lots of different aspects of product prospective usability and possible values. For subsequent redesigning, field trial would also be an effective and economy method to review decisions made in design development, and aid researchers or designer to have more conceptions of the real usage situations.. 20.

(30) 2.4. Summary. The influences of accelerated development of technology on society, interpersonal relationships, cultural values, environment and personal perception become critical. Today, scholars and experts of different fields pay much attention on the issues of human connectedness and interpersonal interactions from their diverse aspects, and try to improve the existing communication media or address new application to enrich people’s lives through communication. Technologies like the Internet or mobile telecommunication exactly give people the possibility of connection with others separated in the distance, however, the growth of technology media usage has led to communication being practiced in an efficient procedure rather than qualitative activities. It seems that a lot of subtle, sensual, or embodied perceptions might be insignificant but actually important in communication. Through these fine and slight physical signals to which people are attuned over a period of time, such as a body movement, a facial expression, or voice quality, they are concerned about others and themselves as well. Hence, the theories of intimacy, social presence, emotional interface, or multimedia and multimodal technology, are on the purpose to integrate these sensual perceptions to improve the profundity and quality of communication, and let the communication media answer to the human requirements and fundamental needs. In fact, the problems of communication not only exist between family members, lovers, or close friends, who are apart from each others, but people who work or live collectively in the same office under unaccommodating circumstances. Therefore, providing new concepts of communication media or improving the technologies existing, seems crucial to maintain people’s relationships. However, in the case of today’s modern offices, interactions between colleagues are disappearing because the embodied conversations are now replaced with e-mails by only hitting the key board. Different usage of communication media and over dependence on the Internet could induce these colleagues to become isolated. In conclusion, it is the intention of this research to expend the perspectives of these researches on human connectedness, broach those concepts of the office design issues, and then enrich people’s lives.. 21.

(31) Today, the colleagues who work together long hours become gradually estranged from each other, and how to promote their relationships is definitely essential. Therefore, there’re several qualitative methods used in this research to thoroughly perceive the real interactions and fundamental needs between colleagues in communicating context. In addition, through participatory design process with real users and experts, design concepts to create an office environment with emotional presence and intimacy could be addressed, and the prototypes were also evaluated in field trail to gain the opinions from users.. 22.

(32) 3. METHODOLOGY In this research, the emphasis is focused on the workers in R&D Department in high-tech companies. The engineers who explore and develop new processing technologies or system programs were selected and participated in this research. Since it is hardly to get permission to enter these types of companies to perform field observation, dyad interviews and probe diaries (Figure 5) are used to investigate the fundamental and emotional needs of these coworkers. After investigating the office cultures, design concepts to meet the needs of people working in the same office are explored from workshops with participants, and prototypes such as communication installation are designed for various working spaces to mediate people’s informational communication. Then, through the field trials and reviewing processes, design concepts are also expanded to enhance the inherent relationships between coworkers.. Figure 5. A probe diary as a self-documentation used in this research.. 23.

(33) 3.1. Research Structure. In this research, the particular people’s communicating contexts in their working environment are attained by interviews and probe diaries. Further, via the workshop with real users and experts of different disciplines, the design process began, and the prototypes were evaluated by field trials. It is hoped that through the stimulation in a real setting more notions of communication media design in the future could be given. This research could be separated into two stages. The first stage is the investigation procedure to understand the colleagues’ social interactions in communication, and to explore their inherent needs for the media and interpersonal connectedness. The second stage is the concept design process, including development of several types of communication media with experts from different disciplines and evaluation of the prototypes in the real working environment. The intact structure of this thesis is shown in the figure 6, and more details of the participatory design activities would be described in section 3.3.. 3.1.1. Investigation. In this research, the emphasis is placed on the engineers in R&D Department. However, exploring the needs and desires of engineers the occupied high-tech engineers seemed difficult. The major problem is that the researcher wasn’t allowed to enter their actual working offices to do field observation. Most high-tech companies control their personnel’s activities in a very high rigid way since the advanced high-tech research and development of a company are confidentially protected. To orientate the restrictions, this research has been conducted alternatively by using dyad interviews and probe diaries. At the outset, to investigate office cultures, the outline of the engineers’ lives was rendered by a pilot individual interview. On the basis of this initial understanding, the traditional one-to-one interviews were replaced with dyad interviews to have the discussions more brisk,. 24.

(34) liberal, and delightful. The informants in dyads were three associate pairs who shared the working environment with each other. They worked in three typical high-tech companies in Taiwan, and were interviewed for at least 2 hours. The interviews were interpreted and categorized into several orientations, which the questions design of probe diaries stood on. The results of interviews and diaries were reinterpreted and integrated into a mind map, a set of the various design issues including main factors which might affect engineers’ personal relationships and social interactions. In view of entire understanding of their office culture, two personae are also portrayed for the representation of the engineers’ typical lives.. Design. Figure 6. The research structure of this thesis. 25.

(35) 3.1.2. Concept Design. In the stage of the participatory design, a workshop was held by prior interviewees and many a researchers from different disciplines. The mind map and the stories of personae were rendered to delineate the different phases of engineers’ real lives, and all participants in the workshop brainstormed for hours in developing new design concepts to enhance a cordial atmosphere for this typical working environment. The design concepts derived from workshop were integrated with the previous design issues and then the prototypes were devised for the appropriate solutions, such as a better application of emerging technology to broaden the directions of perception in communication or an intimate device to increase coworkers’ social contact. Later, several testing scenarios would be appended to each prototype following the design procedure, and then one of these prototypes was selected and installed in a high-tech company for evaluation. In the end, compared with the results of the field trail, all communication issues of concern would be particularly discussed.. 3.2. Research Issues. The issues of personal relationship and communication are involved in different aspects of people’s lives. In the beginning, it was tried to find out the engineers’ communicating context, clear-cut routine activities, and the perception of the media they use. The complex real situations of those engineers’ daily lives in various phases were delineated lucidly by dyad interviews and probe diaries. In dyad interviews, it mainly focused on the context of communication and interactions between the colleagues. What factors might influence these colleagues’ social activities and personal relationships would be found out in this stage. At the same time interviewees’ impressions, usage situations, or expectations of the communication media to their. 26.

(36) surroundings were also interpreted for the future design development. By following a lightly scripted outline, dyad interviews progressed in a candid and delightful canvass. Because each pair of interviewees might be reminded of or prompted by their company, different aspects of the discussing issues could be unceasingly extended. The outline of the dyad interview consisted of five parts, shown in Table 1. For profound comprehension of the interactions between colleagues and their feelings of working environment, it is essential to enter the real field to do observation. However, it is difficult for observers to get into the engineers’ workplaces, so the probe diaries were decided to use based on the rudimentary results of interviews. The participants were asked to write down three-day self-documentation. Through the analysis of these self-documentation records, rich information on the engineers’ daily activities, interactions between them and embodied environment, and their social relationships was attained, and the aspects of participants also helped to form the following design process. The probe diaries were divided into two parts: the first part, similar to the traditional ethnography diaries, the engineers are requested to take down their daily activities, including work and leisure, communication interactions between colleagues, and the media they used three times a day. The second part was that the engineers sketched their working environments including the spaces of work and leisure activity they have (Figure 7). Describing the working environment, four key points have indicated: the location of a participant and his/her close friends, the actual distance of the map, the places where his/her colleagues may chitchat together, and the places frequently used by them.. 27.

(37) Table 1 The outline of dyad interview in the thesis (more details refer to Appendix A) Issues. The factors that might influence social relationships. Communication. Communication behaviors and activities. Context. Communication media Perceptions of presence or other awareness between colleagues Customary using communication media Special communication experiences. Working Environment. Atmosphere and social relationships in the working environment Isolation and Grouping in the working environment Appearance of the working environment Responding the working environment. Work and Leisure Life. Activities of work and leisure Balance of work and leisure. Expectation. Perplexity and hazards of communication device Significance of communication Expectation of future communication. Sentiments of Different. Some communication media achieved by several research teams are shown to the. Media and Interfaces. interviewees to allow them to discuss and give their sentiments or opinions. 1. What do the interviewees think about the application of background awareness in communication media? 2. Which kind of interfaces of communication media the interviewees prefer? 3. Are there any sentiments on communicating activities? 4. Are there any sentiments on the application of emerging technology?. 28.

(38) Figure 7. A probe diary includes two parts: one part is for recording the trivial things about what happens in the workplace and how the recorder feels, and the other part is for sketching the environment. (More details refer to Appendix B). 3.3. Recruiting. In the dyad interviews, there are six participants since three associate pairs recruited (Table 2). All of these recruiters are engineers of R&D department, and respectively belong to three typical high-tech companies in Taiwan (Table 3). Each of these interviewees has working experience over half a year in the high-tech company, shares some open space with colleagues in his/her working environment, and tends to use a high-tech communication device, such as mobile phone, MSN, e-mail, and so forth. The objective of the investigation is to find out the context and experience of daily communication between colleagues, and in addition, to have an insight into the fundamental and emotional needs of coworkers in the same working place. In dyad interviews, it is concentrated in constructing the context of communication and detecting the different factors that might influence the relationship between colleagues. Hence, these three pairs of colleagues were asked to talk about their daily activities in the workplace and the ways to use communication media or channels. Both the way how the colleagues might be mediated by. 29.

(39) the media and the way how they applied the emotional senses to enhance the awareness of the presence was also discussed in this research.. Table 2 Profiles of interviewees Interviewee/. Ages (yrs). Working time. Company. and gender. (Am / Pm). A , C1. 25 Female. 9:30/ 8:30. Function. Leisure Activities. IC examination. Browsing webs, having light refreshments. B , C1. 25 Female. 9:30/ 11:00. Software programming. Browsing webs, having light refreshments, talking on MSN, and playing exercise. C , C2. 25 Male. 8:00/ 10:00. IC simulation and. No leisure activities. analysis D , C2. 23 Female. 8:00/ 8:30. Logic simulation. Gossiping, playing exercise, and having light refreshments. E , C3. 25 Male. 9:30/ 9:00. Software programming. Taking a walk, gossiping, playing exercise, and having light refreshments. F , C3. 22 Female. 10:00/ 6:30. Software programming. Listening to the music. Table 3 Profiles of working environment Company. Working environment. Properties: average age/ the ratio of males and females/ connectedness. C1. 30~60 employees in an office with partitions. around 30/ unequal, a few females/ less contact after work. C2. 300~400 employees in an office without. around 30/ extreme unequal/ no contact after. partitions; 200 employees in an office with. work. partitions, and seats connected to functions C3. 40 employees in an office with partitions, and. around 30/ extreme unequal/ no contact after. seats connected to functions. work. 30.

(40) After analysis and interpretation, the results of dyad interviews, the more information and different aspects of communication issues were unfolded. To increase the reliability of demonstration of previous interviews and to obtain the occasional social interactive event, another thirteen R&D engineers were recruited, working at different high-tech companies to participate the probe diaries. These participants recorded their office routines three times a day, took down some sentiments about communication issues derived from interviews, sketched their embodied working environment, and indicated the interactions which might occur between them and in their workplace. In this stage, the backgrounds of those engineers were similar to those engineers in dyad interviews, but the range of ages is fairly extensive from 23 to 37 years old.. 3.4. Participatory Design Process. After the previous investigation, the colleagues’ inherent needs for the communication and social contact were delineated. The stage of participatory design process includes a workshop, prototyping, and a field trial. In the workshop, different solutions to enhance the interpersonal relationship were discussed and were integrated into varied types of design concepts. Later, several prototypes as communication installations were addressed based on the design issues and concepts from workshop, which were on purpose to convey intimacy and to enlarge the directions of perception in communication. Owing to the limitation of time, only one of our prototypes would be selected for field trial. Here, a proper prototype with several scenarios was tested in the real environment to evaluate if the design concepts match the users’ requirements and to catch the possibility meaning of the new communication devices.. 31.

(41) 3.4.1. Workshop. The workshop was held with the interviewees of the previous study and many participants from different disciplines, including industrial design, computer science, mechanical engineering, and visual communication. In the beginning, the explicit findings and design issues collected from the dyad interviews and diaries were shown in a mind map (Figure 8). To elucidate most engineer’s office cultures and daily lives, two personae were also given:. Figure 8. A mind map of the colleagues’ working cultures. y. Tom is an unhappy engineer working in a strict company with huge work stress, and he works on his own.. The work schedules of most colleagues are very different from. his. He doesn’t have much embodied interactions or conversations with his colleagues. He highly depends on communication via the Internet instead. y. Lisa, a software engineer, really cares about the environment where she works. She sometimes takes a break with her colleagues after hard works, or just goes around and releases the work stress.. These two stories were described specific, and they might represent typical high-tech engineers’ life styles in Taiwan. After that, a brain storming session based on the stories and. 32.