One LED is enough: Catalyzing face-to-face interactions at conferences with a gentle nudge

Jay Chen, Azza Abouzied

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Face-to-face social interactions among strangers today are becoming increasingly rare as people turn towards computermediated networking tools. Today's tools, however, are based on the following assumptions: increased information encourages interaction, profiles are good representations of users to other users, and computer-mediated communications prior to face-to-face meetings lead to better outcomes. This paper describes CommonTies, a gentle technological nudge in the form of a wearable accessory, that encourages immediate, face-to-face, organic social interactions among strangers at conferences. By not exposing any profile information, CommonTies preserves an element of mystery and enables selfdisclosure of information through conversation. We evaluate our system through a field study at a three-day research conference - CSCW 2014. We find that despite our informationscarce design, users were willing to interact with strangers and 74% of the interactions initiated by CommonTies were reported as novel and useful.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 19th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, CSCW 2016
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
Pages172-183
Number of pages12
ISBN (Electronic)9781450335928
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 27 2016
Event19th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, CSCW 2016 - San Francisco, United States
Duration: Feb 27 2016Mar 2 2016

Publication series

NameProceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, CSCW
Volume27

Other

Other19th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, CSCW 2016
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CitySan Francisco
Period2/27/163/2/16

Keywords

  • Computer-mediated interactions
  • Matchmaking
  • Nudge
  • Wearables

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Software
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Computer Networks and Communications

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