Opportunities and Challenges for Reflective Data-Objects in Long-Distance Relationships

Personal data representations have been used to support acts of self-reflection, a topic that has received little attention in the context of long-distance relationships (LDRs). To explore a design space for reflective data representations in the LDR context, first-person methods have been employed together with nine generative sessions with people who had been or were in LDRs. Unlike previous work, the generative sessions were part of an autoethnographic exploration. The participants interpreted the first author’s visualizations, sketched their own visualizations, and imagined their data as data objects. The insights from those sense-making sessions were then analyzed in a card sorting activity between the first author and their partner where seven themes around communication of long-distance couples emerged. Furthermore, based on the data-object ideas and the various sense making sessions, design opportunities and challenges are drawn related to the transformative nature of relationships, negative reflection and aspects of privacy. In conclusion, personal data are seen as co-evolving with humans constantly transforming people’s impression of their romantic relationships in mundane environments.