Tangible Communication of Emotions with a Digital Companion for Managing Stress: An Exploratory Co-Design Study

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to explore how an intelligent digital companion (agent) can support persons (human) with stress-related exhaustion to manage daily activities. In this paper, we explore in particular how information about a person's emotions can be communicated to the agent with means of non-verbal communication through tangible interfaces. The purpose is to explore how different individuals approach the task of designing their own tangible interfaces for communicating emotions with a digital companion, and the range of different preferences and expectations. Six participants were interviewed and created tangible prototypes during a co-creation workshop. The data was analysed using theories about human emotions and activity, and translated into a generic user model, an architecture for a multiagent system and interface design proposals. The results include increased understanding of how different individuals would like to express their emotions with tangible interfaces, and informed the design of the information models regarding representing emotions. The study illuminated the importance of personalisation of functionality and interface design to address the diversity among individuals, as well as the design of the adaptive behaviour of a digital companion. Future work includes further studies involving additional participants, the development of the stress management application and conducting user studies where prototypes are used in daily activities.