FamilyStories: Asynchronous Audio Storytelling for Family Members Across Time Zones

Abstract

Family members who are separated across time zones can easily miss out on feeling connected. We designed and studied the usage of an asynchronous storytelling system, called FamilyStories, to explore the use of audio-based sharing. FamilyStories allows family members to share activities and experiences over distance in different time zones using three different devices that contain different contextual features. To evaluate the design, we conducted a five-week long field study with two family member pairs. Our results show the value of slow, flexible, and non-suggestive interfaces for asynchronous audio communication. We also found ephemerality helped in the sharing of 'instant' feelings, while large time zone differences could be 'synchronized' with time delayed messages. We raise these as design opportunities for asynchronous audio storytelling systems.