Many routine relationship maintenance activities, such as supporting each other in the household, rely on responsive interaction. Unfortunately, the physical separation typical for long-distance relationships severely limits the opportunities to support each other in everyday life. This paper reports an autoethnographical research through design of this, in human–computer interaction (HCI) still quite uncharted, territory. In over two years of design research, the first author developed four concepts, materialized them as functional artifacts, and used them extensively with Claire, his partner. His designerly journey into alternative practices for Claire and him revealed the complexities and intricacies of designing “couple technologies” for the real world. For instance, it highlighted the importance of going beyond mere abstracted presence toward enabling meaningful everyday responsive interaction. We found that such meaningful interaction can be created by focusing on possible practices of mutual caring. Besides providing valuable insights for designers of technology-mediated relatedness, we discuss autoethnographical research through design as a mode of knowledge production in the context of HCI.

许多日常关系维护活动，例如在家庭中相互支持，都依赖于响应式交互。不幸的是，长距离恋爱关系中典型的身体分离严重限制了人们在日常生活中相互支持的机会。本文报告了通过此项设计进行的一项人种志研究，涉及的人机交互（HCI）领域仍十分未知。在超过两年的设计研究中，第一作者提出了四个概念，并将它们具体化为功能工件，并与合作伙伴Claire广泛使用。他在克莱尔（Claire）的替代实践中的设计之旅，揭示了为现实世界设计“耦合技术”的复杂性和复杂性。例如，它强调了超越单纯的抽象状态来实现有意义的日常响应式交互的重要性。我们发现可以通过关注相互关怀的可能做法来创建这种有意义的互动。除了为技术介导的关联性设计者提供宝贵的见解之外，我们还讨论了通过设计作为人机交互背景下知识生产的一种模式的人种志研究。