Maintaining Continuing Bonds in Bereavement: A Participatory Design Process of Be.side

Title of the Paper

Maintaining Continuing Bonds in Bereavement: A Participatory Design Process of Be.side

Paper Information

• Subject Area: Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Grief and Memorial Design
• Keywords: Continuing Bonds, Grief, Participatory Design, Memory, Multimodal Technology

Research Background and Problem

• Challenges Identified by the Authors:

  • During the grieving process after losing a loved one, people often avoid revisiting memories to prevent pain, but such avoidance may exacerbate grief.
  • Traditional memorial practices (e.g., altars or cultural rituals) may not always meet individuals' personalized commemorative needs.
  • Current technologies have limited applications in supporting bereaved individuals in maintaining emotional bonds with the deceased, especially through designs incorporating multimodal sensory experiences.

• Significance of the Problem:

  • Bereavement is a universal social phenomenon, yet how design and technology can help individuals cope with grief and redefine their relationship with the deceased remains underexplored.
  • The rising demand for personalized memorials presents an opportunity for designing technologies with socio-cultural value to meet these needs.

• Related Work and Motivation:

  • The authors reviewed existing technological memorial designs, including digital legacies, visual environments, and physical artifacts, but found limited research focusing on maintaining emotional bonds through non-digital legacies.
  • Using participatory design approaches can make grief-related designs more attuned to the emotional needs of bereaved individuals.

Solution

• Proposed Solution:

  • Design and develop Be.side, a personalized multimodal memorial artifact that helps bereaved individuals maintain emotional bonds with the deceased through sensory elements such as smell, sound, and heartbeat simulation.

• Innovative Aspects:

  • Combining the psychological theory of "continuing bonds" with human-computer interaction technologies.
  • Employing participatory design to ensure the sensory elements of the memorial align closely with users' memory needs, creating a personalized commemorative experience.
  • Utilizing multimodal stimuli (smell, sound, and touch) to provide a rich memory experience, which is less common in traditional visually-based memorial designs.

• Implementation Steps and Key Technologies:

  • Conducting two rounds of interviews and user feedback to understand the emotional experiences of bereaved individuals.
  • Developing a multimodal interactive prototype, including sound recording, customized scents (e.g., placing representative tea bags), and a heartbeat simulator.
  • Iteratively refining the design, such as adjusting heartbeat rates, reducing component noise, optimizing light brightness, and improving tactile materials.
  • Conducting a four-week longitudinal study to observe how bereaved individuals interact with Be.side and its long-term impact on their grief.

Research Outcomes

• Specific Findings:

  • Be.side was shown to help bereaved individuals evoke memories of the deceased and establish new commemorative rituals, such as reflecting before bedtime or engaging in solitary conversations.
  • The participatory research process itself provided bereaved individuals with opportunities to express emotions and process grief.

• Advantages Compared to Existing Solutions:

  • Beyond the design of the memorial artifact, the design process was framed as a form of grief healing.
  • Compared to digital legacy-based solutions, Be.side offers a more personalized design that closely aligns with individual emotional memories.

• Key Experiments and Evaluation Results:

  • In the longitudinal study, participants reported feelings of comfort and introspection brought by Be.side, which also triggered new memories associated with the deceased.
  • The integration of multimodal elements encouraged bereaved individuals to develop personalized rituals, incorporating local cultures and customs.

• Limitations and Future Directions:

  • Some participants experienced heightened grief during the process, indicating the potential need for support from mental health professionals.
  • The high level of personalization in the design poses challenges for large-scale production; future research could explore balancing mass production with customization.
  • Future work could integrate psychological or clinical interventions to explore the therapeutic potential of Be.side.