Mandala: supporting social presence and interaction in the Chinese home

Multiple factors lead social software to be unevenly adopted by differing age segments in urban China. This paper presents user research to understand the discrepancy between parents and their children and attempts to address them with the design of an information appliance. The appliance uses novel techniques to magnify and emphasize unidirectional social presence data so as to comply with cultural social protocol. It attempts to support interaction ranging from peripheral awareness to real-time conversation. Initial reactions to the design are also presented.