On nurturing strong-tie distant relationships: from theory to prototype

This paper presents our research on the process of creating new communication experiences in the private sphere of users. To do this, we have chosen to study the concept of social presence, and also the notion of communication. The communication models that we have examined come from various disciplines and all have in common the fact that they focus on exploring the communication act once the decision to communicate has been taken. We have build upon them and conceived a model that includes an analysis of the factors that influence the decision to communicate. This initial analysis has helped us integrate the specific needs of our targeted users and has allowed us to materialize them in a working prototype of a communication terminal called TACT.