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Virtual Intimate Objects are low bandwidth devices for communicating intimacy for couples in long-distance relationships. VIOs were designed to express intimacy in a rich manner over a low bandwidth connection. VIOs were evaluated using a logbook which included open-ended questions designed to understand the context within which the VIO was used. Users constructed a complex, dynamically-changing understanding of the meaning of each interaction, based on an understanding of their and their partner's context of use. The results show that users had rich and complex interpretations of this seemingly simple communication, which suggests the necessity of exploring context of use to understand the situated nature of the interactions as an intrinsic part of an evaluation process for such technologies.
Joseph Kaye (Fri,) studied this question.