6. Brief Description

Background

I only contacted my grandparents one or two times since I moved to the US last year. After his death, I regretted a lot because I have nothing related to him. I don’t even have his picture. I realized that parents don’t live forever, so I decided to call my parents more often. It is not easy to contact with my parents since not only the time differences but also the father-and-son relationships between my father and me. He is strict, comes home late, and doesn’t talk a lot at home, so it is hard to contact with him, and a little bit awkward to call my father. Furthermore, My parents don’t call me often because they don’t want to disturb me.

Concept description

I am thinking about making a couple of digital photo frame with a web camera called “Family Time.” A parent uses one device, and another is used by a child who lives far away from the parent. It is a digital photo frame located on the desk. Only at a specific time (the user set the time,) however, it turns into an asynchronous video mail communication device. It automatically records a video for one minute at the specified time and sends the video mail to at the specified time because I want to create the daily habit.

For example, if you are a child in New York, the device will automatically play a video mail from your mother at 10:00 pm New York time. After that, the device will automatically start recording so that you send a message to your mother for one minute. Then, your mother’s device will play your video mail at 10:00 pm her time, and then your mother’s device will record your mother’s message for one minute. This series of recordings is repeated every day. During the recording for one minute, a different mission will be provided for the users every day, such as the users should say “Thank you for something” each other or doing a game for enhancing relationships.

I am testing myself and my parents now because it is hard to find the test users. It must be biased, but I found out a positive effect: I experienced that it is better to contact every day than contact less, and I have more to share because I can share a day with my parents.