Feeling you close to me: Mediating an infant's presence through an exploration of tactile interaction

Touch is invaluable in parent-infant interactions, but there is a lack of research and design supporting tactile interaction in baby monitors. An exploratory study was conducted in the homes of 10 parents to understand the usage of baby monitors in everyday child-care routines. Parents’ responses revealed that the unfiltered videos in baby monitors require significant cognitive effort to interpret vital signals of their infants. In this thesis, I utilize a research-through-design approach that explores how tactile interaction can support a more direct communication channel to inform parents of their infants’ well-being and enhance presence in the computer-mediated connection. Four usability studies were conducted on four wearables prototypes that were iteratively designed. The final prototype, ombex, iterates from previous shortcomings and adopts pneumatic feedback to construct a more convincing association to breathing. Findings affirm that the tactile interaction using pneumatic feedback in ombex elicited an endearing connection as if a loved one is close by.