Project
Overview

This project focuses on the communication issues in the long-distance parents-children relationship. By using primary and secondary research, such as interviews, this project has designed FRAYE, a digital tablet, and FRAYE APP. With the help of AI, users can develop quality parents-children interaction and communication over long distances, thus, promoting a harmonious relationship.

Timeline

Secondary Research

What happens to students that move to college, and international students who are even further away from their home? Have the relationship with their parents changed?
Feature 2
How can enhanced profiles improve user loyalty?
  • Gamified methods to add engagement + profile info
Feature Focus
Adding more info into profile (deep info)

Students that move away from their home for education

Additional use-cases should also be improved with the enhanced profile functions.
Painpoints
Solving users pain points of not finding value in current profile content

There is a correlation between the level of emotional support students receive from parents and their feeling of well-being.

Secondary Research

To understand how frequent the participants communicate with their parents/ children and how they think of the quality of interactions. As well as the emotional support student wish to receive from their parents.
Time
11/18/2021-11/22/2021
Location
Los Angeles
Interviewee
David Mu, Joanna Lee, Jason Lee, Rosa Dong, Mrs. Wu, Mr. Chow.
Joanna Lee Junior student
“I feel like my parents don’t understand my psychological state. They think it is my choice to feel anxious or depressed. I hope they could try to understand my feelings and treat me like an adult.”
Rosa Dong Junior student
“The ideal way is that we could communicate with mutual respect, but I feel like it’s difficult to make that happen since they are used to being over-protective of me.”
Mrs. Wu
Parent
“I care about my daughter’s health the most, then her grades. She thinks I worry too much, but my concerns are reasonable. I want to see her growth, but I can’t witness her daily life.”
“We talk to each other way much less since I’m away from home. My parents don’t know what I’ve been doing and what my schedule is. I don’t really tell them what I’ve accomplished, but sometimes they expect too much from me.”
David Mu Senior student
“When we only talk over phone, I tend to abbreviate our conversation and skip the miscellaneous details because I feel I can’t fully convey my expression over the phone or through chat.”
Janson Lee Junior student
“It’s like I’m used to treat my kid the way I do when he still live at home. But suddenly he’s off to college now. We need to find a way to communicate.”
Mr. Chow
Parent
Joanna Lee Junior student
“I feel like my parents don’t understand my psychological state. They think it is my choice to feel anxious or depressed. I hope they could try to understand my feelings and treat me like an adult.”
“We talk to each other way much less since I’m away from home. My parents don’t know what I’ve been doing and what my schedule is. I don’t really tell them what I’ve accomplished, but sometimes they expect too much from me.”
David Mu Senior student
Rosa Dong Junior student
“The ideal way is that we could communicate with mutual respect, but I feel like it’s difficult to make that happen since they are used to being over-protective of me.”
“When we only talk over phone, I tend to abbreviate our conversation and skip the miscellaneous details because I feel I can’t fully convey my expression over the phone or through chat.”
Janson Lee Junior student
Mrs. Wu
Parent
“I care about my daughter’s health the most, then her grades. She thinks I worry too much, but my concerns are reasonable. I want to see her growth, but I can’t witness her daily life.”
“It’s like I’m used to treat my kid the way I do when he still live at home. But suddenly he’s off to college now. We need to find a way to communicate.”
Mr. Chow
Parent

Family Interactions

With the findings in mind, I conducted another round of literature review to find the principle of children-parent communication and ways to promote more harmonious family interactions.

The three parameters

Rucan et al.(2012) evaluated children-parent interaction based on the following three paramers and summerized few rules of effective communication.

Parent-Children interaction

Good family interactions

Represents: good family atmosphere, positive dynamics and presence of emotional support without hostility and violence

Good family interactions

Represents: good family atmosphere, positive dynamics and presence of emotional support without hostility and violence

Communication

Includes: listening, understanding, respect. Requires parents to use a calm tone suitable to the message.

Harmonious development of child

This is the result of good family interaction which influences the state and child’s behavior and development of personality.

Rules of effective communication

01

Parents prefer to speak with the child without "preaching"

02

Listen carefully and  encourage to talk and express emotions.

03

 Do not say things that could hurt

04

Avoid raising voice.

Persona

Los Angeles
Senior
4th year away from home
Before turning 18, David lived with his parents in his hometown. David merely has conflicts with his parents after adolescence. However, using face time as the only way to chat with his overseas parents, he does encounter situations when he felt his parents couldn’t fully comprehend his emotional needs.

Frustration

  • “My parents don’t know what I’m doing recently.”
  • “They expect too much from me, I’m not that great.”

Motivations

  • “I wish they would know what I’m doing.”
  • “I hope they would see my accomplishment.”

Personality

Interacting
Listening
Sharing
Understanding

Communication Tools

Wechat
Discord
Beijing
50 yrs old
6th year her daughter is in U.S.
Mrs. Wu’s daughter came to the U.S. as an 8th grader. After all these years of being on two parts of the globe and spending little time with her daughter in person, Mrs. Wu finds it hard to let go of her daughter and wishes find a better way to communicate in their relationship.

Frustration

  • “I just can’t help to worry about her, safety, mental health, etc.”
  • “This is usually the cause of our conflicts.”

Motivations

  • “We need a better way to communicate.”
  • “I wish to show my care in a ‘noninterruptive’ way.”

Personality

Interacting
Listening
Sharing
Understanding

Communication Tools

Wechat
Discord
Redefined Problem Statement

 The question that is left to us is how to help children use a better medium that allows them to fully convey their emotions through sharing their life and feelings with their parents, improving communication quality and developing harmonious relationships.

Problem statement

01
How to use a better medium to facilitate communication
02
How to help children to better convey emotions
03
How to promote children to share  feelings with parents
04
How to reduce problems and improve relationship

Ideation

Brainstorming

To explore design opportunities based on the problem statement, I brainstormed features, functions and evaluated them using 2x2 matrix.

Storyboard

After comparing the brainstormed features and functions, I brainstormed a scenario and composed a storyboard to help me turn concepts into a detailed narrative.

Wireframe & Testing

With the design goals in mind, I designed the following wireframes and mid-fi for APP and tablet, including home page, posting page, following page and calendar page. Then I conducted a usability test and gathered feedbacks.
O1
Parent and children should both have access to APP and tablet and same navigation.
02
Effective communication requires guidance and notes; therefore, progressive assessment and suggestion could facilitate more effective communication.

Home page

Check posts and voice message and leave your likes

Share calendar

Share your calendar on both APP and tablet

Checking weather

AI’s role

Assess the quality of communication with 4 parameters, and AI provieds suggestion.

Thank you for viewing!

haileyfu777@gmail.com