Parental Collaboration and Closeness: Envisioning with New Couple Parents

TL;DR

The paper addresses the decline in couple closeness during the transition to parenthood by exploring how technology can support closeness in co-parenting. It uses co-design sessions with 10 new-parent couples in Taiwan and design probes that mix problematic co-parenting scenarios with existing app functions to envision closeness-enhancing technologies. Findings show that while current tools mainly support information sharing and task coordination, couples desire technologies that foster interdependence, emotional awareness, and positive shared experiences. The work expands the design space for co-parenting tech by prioritizing closeness and offers practical design directions with cross-cultural relevance for new parents. These insights advance HCI research by integrating emotion and interdependence into co-parenting technology design.

Abstract

Couples often experience a decrease in closeness as they cope with the demands of parenthood. Existing technologies have supported parenting and parental collaboration. However, these technologies do not adequately support closeness in co-parenting. We use scenarios and design probes to brainstorm with 10 new parent couples to explore and envision possibilities for technologies to support closeness. We reported parents' current technology use for co-parenting and how participants considered and envisioned co-parenting technology for closeness, including information and task sharing, emotion awareness and disclosure, and fostering fun interaction. We discuss the potential technology has for fostering closeness in co-parenting by (1) fostering interdependence by supporting parental competence and (2) integrating positive emotions and experiences, such as validation and fun, in parenting. Based on our findings, we expand the design space of technology for closeness to include interdependence. We also expand the design space for co-parenting technology by integrating more positive emotions.