FamilyScope

Abstract

As the time and activities shared by the family at home increased, the social and emotional health of the family became important. However, the self-report-based family health assessment tool previously used to explore and evaluate family health has limitations in supporting various family interaction processes. Therefore, we designed FamilyScope, a family-centric data visualization tool, to find out whether passive sensor data collected through family activity scenarios can quantify the multi-layered aspects of family social and emotional health. In addition, we conducted a preliminary user study with four families (N = 12) in a smart home testbed to observe whether the visualization tool could support exploration and reflection on the family's social interaction. Through interview results analysis, we found that the visualization tool is useful for exploring family-centric data and reflecting on the family interaction process, and that family members’ psychological and behavioral responses and involvement were well reflected in the data. Moreover, it was evaluated to support the discovery of new insights into family members and family interaction processes. The empirical findings and design implications of a family-centric data visualization tool for supporting family social and emotional health were derived in this study.