date: 11/23/2022

course: cse 440, introduction to human computer interaction

authors: Katelyn Mei, Yerim Heo, Hawa Drammeh, Pu Thavikulwat

Relationships are associated with better health, longer life, reduced stress, discovery of oneself, and overall happiness, if done right. People in relationships want to be seen, heard, and understood by their partner. The crux of a successful & sustainable relationship involves one showing active care for their partner, and open & healthy communication accompanied by a willingness to work through conflicts as they emerge.

Problem and Solution Overview

Poor communication is one of the most common problems among people in romantic relationships. It can lead to misunderstandings, conflicts, and frustrations that may affect the sustainability of one’s relationship.

Poor communication can manifest in different ways:

  1. One may feel that their partner is uninterested in them and/or does not feel cared for when the other does not check up on them.
  2. When conflicts arise between couples, both partners might not respond in a healthy way such as shutting down in a conversation. Unhealthy responses can escalate conflicts and leave the root of conflicts unaddressed, which can be harmful to relationships in the long term.

User Research

Before designing a solution, we hoped to understand how miscommunication arises in couples’ daily interactions and a user-centered research process was necessary.

In searching for participants, we focused on people who were currently or previously in monogamous relationships aged 18–30.

→ Research Methodology

We decided on self-reporting for both research methods because romantic relationships are usually very intimate ones, and any sort of observational method would most likely be awkward, and change the way the participants usually interact with each other. Keeping these factors in mind, we chose the following approaches: