Sadly only two women made it to the discussion party despite a high level of interest. I guess this a part of the design process: figuring out how to overcome setbacks. I came up with an alternative means: e-mail. The women who could not make it to the event have agreed to answer a few open-ended questions that parallel the discussion and activities. The e-mail reads:
Thank you for interest in providing me with some input for the thesis. I'd greatly appreciate your response to the following question by Wednesday evening.
- Tell me a little about yourself and your relationship. How old are you? What's your profession? How long have in your in a relationship? What the nature of your relationship? (i.e. Do you live together? Long distance? Married?)
- You’re going to be breaking up with text messages. You’re tried several things and compromising but nothing seems to be working out. For five minutes I’d like you to write a breakup letter to text messages explaining what’s not working and why, including what you’ve done to make things work out. Maybe even include who (or really what) you’ll be leaving text messages for.
- Tell me a story of a recent or memorable time when you've experienced miscommunication and frustration due to texting your partner. Not only tell me what was said but also what you were doing at the time and things you were feeling and thinking.
- Imagine an app that could do anything you desired for better communication. What would it look like? How would it function? What could it do? Feel free to borrow ideas from other app you like, noting which app you got the idea. Don’t feel restricted to current technology. For instance maybe your app could emit smells. Silly ideas and ones you may think are stupid are openly welcome!