ShareTable: Supporting Communication in Separated Families

April 23, 2012
Svetlana "Lana" Yarosh | Georgia Institute of Technology

Have you ever tried to talk to a young child on the phone for more than five minutes? If you have, then you may understand some of the challenges routinely faced by families affected by military deployment, divorce, and frequent work travel. Working closely with separated families, I have come to understand the unique needs of this communication context, which is characterized by asymmetric (and frequently conflicting) motivations, abilities, and goals of the stakeholders. To address these challenges, I designed and built the ShareTable, a communication appliance that combines easy-to-initiate videoconferencing with a shared tabletop workspace that provides context through shared activities. A month-long deployment of the ShareTable in the homes of four Atlanta-area families has demonstrated the potential of this technology for increasing the amount of communication between parents and children, improving the quality of the parent-child relationship, and supporting a remote connection that was described by participants as “almost touching” and “a valuable extra dimension.” I will also reflect on how the process of developing and evaluating the ShareTable can inform other communication technologies in and out of the home setting.

Speaker Details

Svetlana “Lana” Yarosh is a Ph.D. candidate in the Human-Centered Computing program at Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research interests fall primarily in the area of Human-Computer Interaction, particularly Ubiquitous and Social Computing. She has a passion for empirically investigating real-world needs that may be addressed through computing applications. After identifying these opportunities, she designs and develops technological interventions, evaluating them using a balance of qualitative and quantitative methods. Most recently, she has created a media space system supporting synchronous remote communication between children and parents in separated families. Her work has been featured on CNN, has won multiple innovation competition, and has been recognized with a Fran Allen Ph.D. Fellowship Award. Svetlana Yarosh is honored to have been the recipient of numerous grants and scholarships including the AT&T Research Labs Graduate Fellowship, the IBM Graduate Fellowship, and the Nokia University Funding Award.