Impacts of Handcrafting Tangible Communication Avatars on the Communication Partners and Creative Experiences

Social networking services allow people to feel and remain connected with others. However, fatigue, loneliness, and anxiety are believed to increase as communication becomes increasingly intimate. In our previous study, we developed Palco, a paper-based, handcrafted, and tangible avatar. We demonstrate that abstract and passive communications are effective in maintaining relationships with communication partners. This study focuses on a mechanism to support the creation of avatars by users by adding the ability to identify multiple avatars and project information to each avatar using a single projector to the Palco system. A user study examined the effectiveness of user-generated avatars by comparing avatars with different levels of user involvement in the process from design to use. The findings indicate that user-generated avatars have the potential to function as a communication medium that strengthens emotional bonds between communication partners. Additionally, the experiences in the design and creation of the avatars allowed the users to demonstrate their creativity.