Design and Field Trial of Adilet: Physical Sensing of Message Creation, Transmission, and Receipt for Emotional Engagement
Jin-young Moon, Nanum Kim, Nari Kim, Geonho Lee, and Young-Woo Park
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.