PuppetChat: Fostering Intimate Communication through Bidirectional Actions and Micronarratives

TL;DR

PuppetChat is a dyadic messaging prototype that enhances intimate communication by enabling embodied interactions, responsive actions, and personalized micronarratives, leading to increased social presence and self-disclosure.

Contribution

It introduces a novel messaging system that incorporates reciprocity-aware recommendations and micronarratives to deepen expressive and continuous communication.

Findings

Enhanced social presence and intimacy

Supported more expressive self-disclosure

Sustained continuity and shared memories

Abstract

As a primary channel for sustaining modern intimate relationships, instant messaging facilitates frequent connection across distances. However, today's tools often dilute care; they favor single tap reactions and vague emojis that do not support two way action responses, do not preserve the feeling that the exchange keeps going without breaking, and are weakly tied to who we are and what we share. To address this challenge, we present PuppetChat, a dyadic messaging prototype that restores this expressive depth through embodied interaction. PuppetChat uses a reciprocity aware recommender to encourage responsive actions and generates personalized micronarratives from user stories to ground interactions in personal history. Our 10-day field study with 11 dyads of close partners or friends revealed that this approach enhanced social presence, supported more expressive self disclosure, and sustained continuity and shared memories.