Communication between Asian grandparents and their overseas grandchildren has been impeded by an imbalance in technology adoption. We used a combined method of user research, survey, and user-centered design to address this problem. Considering user experience of two different end-users in this interaction process, we designed a digital inbox connected with a mobile application as a final design. We intended to increase communication frequency between family members, and also to cross between traditional media and current technology, as well as cultures.

As preliminary research, we tried to figure out several questions based on our target group—overseas Asian students and young employees.

1. How does our target user group communicate with their grandparents?
2. In what type of media (e.g. text, picture, video, audio call) do they want to share when communicating?
3. What content (e.g. private story, positive experience, personal concern) do they want to share with their grandparents?
4. Why do they communicate in this way?

We found that their communication was significantly decreased after they had been abroad. Because grandparents were not able to use social network or video talk independently, grandchildren had to schedule a special time considering heavy course load and time lag (only 35.7% of grandparents can use smartphones when they communicate with grandchildren).

Grandchildren tended to convey selected information to their grandparents. They preferred to share positive information and experiences (66.7% of grandchildren don’t want to say “Life in the US is going in an unexpected direction, totally out of control. I feel I’ve lost my direction. What can I do?” and 94.4% would not tell them if they “drank until dawn last night,” while 76.7% of them would tell if they received a full academic scholarship. What grandchildren wanted to hear from grandparents would be comparatively limited and mostly health related: 90% said they would be inclined to ask about grandparent’s health condition, while only 56.7% were curious about their daily life, hobbies and activities and 53.3% were interested in their life experiences.

Based on these results, we designed a survey and gathered 30 samples from the target group, including grandchildren from China, Korea and Taiwan who were studying abroad in the U.S. (age range of 18~29). We wanted to reassure that results we found in contextual inquiry were replicable in entire target groups and found device usage situations for both grandchildren and grandparents. Findings influencing our final design are:

1. There is no convenient way for grandchildren to share pictures with grandparents when they are abroad: 76.7% of grandchildren are using audio calls for communication with grandparents, and only 3.3% were using social networking services, and they would like to share this visual information even more than mere stories (93.1% of grandchildren answered that they wanted to share “pictures of thanksgiving dinner with friends” and 89.7% of them want to share “pictures of travel during term break” while 80% of them would tell them that “I visited a sightseeing place during term break.”).
2. Grandparents have difficulty learning high-tech devices, such as smartphones and tablets. Interviewee A said, “it is useless to learn such devices at my age.” However, those devices are the main channel that grandchildren use when communicating in their daily lives.
3. Personal choice of information as communication content varies.

Since this is a tool to connect two different side of grandparents and children, we had to design and test at the both ends.

Grandparent Part

We had to conduct intensive user research on the user group since the user group includes elderlies who are not accustomed to newer technology. We recruited 4 elderly people to conduct user tests on the device used in the grandparents’ part. We built a mockup to test usability in as similar of environment as possible. The mockup was given to our participants, and they were asked to freely interact with it. By monitoring their interaction with the mockup, we could decide the form and function of our device. It will be discussed more in the final design part.

Grandchildren’s part

With our low-fidelity prototype, we conducted 5 user tests on the grandchildren’s part. Based on a paper prototype test using a think-aloud method, we could organize the flow of the application. In follow-up interviews, we could find users’ needs to share not only their post on SNS but also create meta-data that they can provide. Moreover, users felt that their expression was limited because specific emotions they wanted to share with their grandparents were not uploaded on their timeline. We added features to upload data, such as locations, maps, and weather. Also, we let users write their own text messages on their newspaper.

1. Retrieve posts from your social media account
2. Check posts you want to share
3. You can put additional media on your journal

4. You can simply put text or other data on journal
5. Check and finalize journal
6. History of past journals