While the rapid exchange of messages in instant messaging (IM) is useful for maintaining convenient and continuous communication, it can simultaneously diminish recipients’ opportunities to reflect on and emotionally engage with individual messages. This paper introduces Adilet, a system that represents the process of composing and receiving delayed messages through a physical device, designed to enhance message awareness, perceived value, and reflective engagement. Adilet allows users to ensure the status of writing, sending, and receiving messages and approximate total writing time. A field study with four groups of two close partners demonstrated that Adilet improved message quality by increasing participants' awareness on both writing and reception. Furthermore, consistent awareness of message presence and clues about message content enhanced anticipation. Our findings suggest further implications for designing communication systems that support deeper and more valuable emotional exchange by improving message value and recognition in close relationships.

Mood is influenced by complex factors and involves subjective interpretation, leading to diverse methods of recording it. While existing tools provide customizable features, they often fall short in promoting deep reflection and meaningful engagement. We developed Lino, an interactive system that includes single stroke drawing records created in a mobile app and a desktop frame designed for archiving these drawings and supporting the attachment of optional voice recordings. Through a three-week field study with six participants, we found that participants make meaning in the process of reframing their daily moods into single stroke drawings and continuously refined these recordings through interactions in their everyday spaces. Our findings imply considerations for empowering users through personal interpretation for meaning-making process in data collection and visualization for effective personal informatics system and supporting evolving personal reflective practices.

In open-plan offices, face-to-face (F2F) interruptions frequently occur to facilitate collaboration and cooperation with colleagues. We designed Pati & Bellio to support the coordination of F2F interruptions in open-plan offices. Pati is a partition-style personal device that visualizes availability for F2F interruptions and Bellio is a shared interface that allows users to send notifications to their colleagues from a distance. Our three-week in field study with four groups of participants reveals that examining the process of F2F interruptions helps determine the importance of the interruption, and the physical distance provided by Pati and Bellio naturally allowed time to prepare for conversations. We also identified how the visualized availability is considered after an interruption begins. Our findings imply considerations in designing systems to support coordinating social interaction in work environments.

Accumulating a life history is a valuable resource for understanding self and reflecting on personal historical experience, which could be developed through diary writing. To facilitate the recording of past events in a diary, we designed and implemented Rebulb, a system that enables users to engage with reflective questions about proud moments and document memories evoked for accumulating one's life history. Our four-month field study with three participants showed that users intentionally and spontaneously recalled vague and wide memories during their daily activity and then concretized these memories by writing them down in a journal. The study also revealed that regardless of whether the memories were positive or negative, the current state of the user played a crucial role in how these memories were processed and reflected upon. Our finding imply consideration in designing a tool for supporting the recall and documentation of past experiences.

Capturing people’s spontaneous thoughts or daily emotions in their everyday living space can be difficult and can pose a psychological burden from a clinical standpoint. To address this issue, we have developed EmotionFrame, which allows users to archive their daily experiences by recording videos of their current thoughts and emotions at home. EmotionFrame serves as a journaling device, and the parameters for journaling have been determined based on a depression assessment model. This study explores the benefits of users’ recording feelings about their daily events, which can also help with assessing depressive mood with the journaling data. Our three-week in-field study with eight participants showed that EmotionFrame could be integrated into participants’ daily routines based on their previous diary-writing habits. In addition, its harmonious frame shape fits in with the everyday environment. Being able to engage in spontaneous journaling in private spaces – and in a way that allowed them to see themselves – prompted the study participants to effectively record their sincere thoughts and emotions during the archiving process.