Bondi: Designing Tangible and Multimodal Interfaces for Continuing Bonds in Pet Bereavement

Paper Title

Bondi: Designing Tangible and Multimodal Interfaces for Continuing Bonds in Pet Bereavement

Publication Info

• Topic area: Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) for pet bereavement support
• Keywords: pet bereavement, continuing bonds, tangible interaction, multimodal feedback, grief support, participatory design, memorialization, thanatosensitive design, emotional well-being, HCI

Background and Problem

• Problem / challenge: Pet bereavement is a significant emotional experience, yet it lacks formal rituals and societal recognition, leaving owners with limited tools to maintain continuing bonds. Existing memorialization methods are often static and insufficiently interactive, failing to address the unique sensory and emotional aspects of pet-owner relationships.
• Significance: Addressing this gap is crucial to support emotional well-being, reduce disenfranchised grief, and help pet owners process their loss in a meaningful way.
• Motivation and related work: While HCI has explored grief support for human loss, pet bereavement remains underexplored. Prior studies have focused on static artefacts or digital memorials, but these lack the embodied, multimodal feedback necessary to recreate the sensory and interactive essence of pet-owner bonds.

Solution

• Proposed approach: Bondi, a tangible and multimodal artefact designed to support continuing bonds with deceased pets through customizable interactions involving touch, sound, light, and movement.
• Novelty:
  1. Integration of multimodal feedback (e.g., warmth, sound, light, and tail movement) to evoke sensory memories of pets.
  2. Abstract, symbolic design to avoid uncanny realism while fostering emotional connection.
  3. Customizable interactions tailored to individual pet-owner memories and routines.
  4. Support for both private grief processing and social sharing of pet loss.
• Procedure and key techniques:
  • Conducted a mixed-methods study: a survey (N=611), participatory design sessions (N=10), and a three-week field deployment (N=4).
  • Developed Bondi as a soft, interactive artefact with features like a furry surface, thermal feedback, breathing light, and customizable auditory responses.
  • Evaluated Bondi’s impact on grief processing, memory preservation, and social sharing through qualitative data collection and thematic analysis.

Results

• Concrete findings:
  • 86.6% of survey participants reported poor mental well-being after pet loss, with 89.9% valuing continuing bonds.
  • Bondi facilitated vivid recollections, reduced social barriers to grief sharing, and provided comfort through sensory feedback.
  • Participants integrated Bondi into daily routines, using it for stress relief, reminiscence, and emotional connection.
• Advantage over baselines:
  • Unlike static memorials, Bondi offered dynamic, interactive engagement, enabling users to re-establish disrupted routines and maintain sensory connections with their pets.
  • Lowered the social barriers for discussing pet loss, fostering shared grieving experiences.
• Experiments / evaluation:
  • Survey (N=611): Explored pet owners’ grief experiences and memorialization practices.
  • Participatory design sessions (N=10): Co-designed Bondi with bereaved pet owners, identifying key design criteria.
  • Field deployment (N=4): Evaluated Bondi’s integration into daily life and its impact on grief processing over three weeks.
• Limitations and future work:
  • Limited generalizability due to small deployment sample size and focus on specific grief contexts (e.g., sudden or euthanasia-related loss).
  • Technical challenges like limited speech recognition and hardware reliability.
  • Future work includes refining hardware, exploring cultural differences, and integrating temporal/spatial awareness for context-sensitive interactions.

Summary

This study introduces Bondi, a tangible and multimodal artefact designed to support continuing bonds in pet bereavement. By integrating customizable sensory feedback (e.g., warmth, sound, light, and movement), Bondi helps bereaved pet owners re-establish disrupted routines, process grief, and share memories socially. The mixed-methods evaluation demonstrates its effectiveness in fostering emotional connection and reducing disenfranchised grief. Future research will address technical refinements, cultural sensitivity, and broader applicability to diverse grief contexts. Bondi exemplifies how HCI can create meaningful, interactive artefacts for pet bereavement.