How Bereaved Parents Make Meaning from Photos for Continuing Bonds

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The bereaved interact with photos of the deceased in various ways to maintain continuing bonds. Extant research in HCI and interaction design suggests leveraging data on photos’ contexts (e.g., time and place) to support photo use by the bereaved. Extending this research, we interviewed 17 bereaved parents to examine how the bereaved might also interact with photos’ content (e.g., color schemes, facial expressions). We characterize their interactions as processes of meaning-making that enabled them to keep their finite photos relevant and maintain continuing bonds with their children. By identifying meaning-making processes in terms of interactions with both photos’ content and contexts, we open up possibilities for supporting photo use for the bereaved that leverage content-related data. Our findings more broadly highlight the importance of accounting for subjective meaning-making processes in data-driven approaches to photo use in HCI and computer vision.