Domestic Media Spaces

The original Media Space research initiated at PARC focused on the workplace. Over the last decade, computing technologies rapidly changed the way families can communicate, coordinate, and connect with others through readily-available (and often free) applications, such as Google Talk, Skype, or iChat. The accessibility and proliferation of these applications means that family members are increasingly faced with new mechanisms to reach out and connect with their family and friends. For this reason, technology is now rapidly reconfiguring the way we think about and design for domestic spaces. As it does so, researchers now must directly confront issues of family relations and the subtle negotiations that are part of that realm. “Connection” can be emotionally expressive or merely informational. Analytic frameworks as well as technologies developed to support work may not be appropriate for understanding this setting.

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