A design framework for mediated personal relationship devices

Substantial numbers of people carry out intimate relationships at a distance. These people have to utilise a variety of communication technologies in order to maintain their relationship. Although a number of communication technologies have been developed to help maintain an emotional connection between remote couples, there has been no comprehensive consideration of the design space that these technologies are developed within. We present here a proposed design framework for intimate communication devices. The intention is to highlight the decisions designers have to make when coming up with new communication systems and provide a more formalised system for considering the issues involved.