Figure 1: The Grandtotem.

Term DefinitionAcculturativestress

The distinctive type ofstress associated withindividuals’ cross-culturalencounters [13]

Transition Changes in grand-child/parent lives thatrequire continuous adap-tation and developmentboth individually andrelationally [5]

Table 1: Definitions of key terms in litera-ture related to international students.

Grandtotem: SupportingInternational and IntergenerationalRelationships

Mark Butzer, Zachary Levonian, Yangyang Luo, Kathleen Watson, Ye Yuan,C. Estelle Smith, Svetlana YaroshUniversity of MinnesotaMinneapolis, MN, USA{butz0027, levon003, luo00130, watso559, yuan0191, smit3694, lana}@umn.edu

ABSTRACTThe grandchild-grandparent relationship faces unique challenges among international students. Wedeveloped the Grandtotem, which functions as a focal point for family ritual, a photo frame, anda relationship media album. Research with international student grandchildren helped to identifythree dimensions along which their relationships with grandparents must adapt: (1) technology, (2)physical barriers, and (3) changing roles. Initial design feedback suggests that the Grandtotem is apromising tool for strengthening the social fabric during a difficult time of cultural transition.

INTRODUCTIONThe relationship between grandparents and their adult grandchildren is a unique bond with thepotential to enrich the lives of all parties [11]. However, an increasing number of students are choosingto study abroad, which introduces challenges in the maintenance of those relationships as studentsundergo an often-stressful transition.We treat these challenges as opportunities to reduce acculturative

Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without feeprovided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and thefull citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contactthe owner/author(s).CSCW ’20 Companion, October 17–21, 2020, Virtual Event, USA© 2020 Copyright held by the owner/author(s).ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-8059-1/20/10.https://doi.org/10.1145/3406865.3418307

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Id Gender StatusP1 F UGP2 M GP3 F GP4 F GP5 M GP6 F UGP7 F GP

Table 2: Participants recruited for forma-tive interviews. Status is undergraduate(UG), graduate (G), or grandparent (GP).All but P6 and P7 were enrolled at the Uni-versity of Minnesota.

Figure 2: The Grandtotem features two7” touch screens (1) (2), a hinged top (4),a capacitive touch sensor (5), notificationLED lights (6), and space to display a staticphotograph (3). A camera (7) under thehinge is activated by a reed switch on thehinge. The primary screen (1), the galleryscreen (2), and the peripherals (5) (6) aredisplayed from a laptop, a Raspberry Pi,and an Arduino Uno respectively.

stress (see Table 1) by fostering the relationship between students and their grandparents. We presentthe Grandtotem, a system designed to enable stronger connections across continents and generations.

International students in colleges and universities struggle to stay in touch with their grandparentsin their home countries [7]. While the younger generation often maintains social connections usinglightweight methods like text and social media [6], many older adults find these technologies difficultto use, or feel that they lack the capacity to support meaningful relationships [7]. But, successfullymaintaining communication can benefit both generations. For students who are managing theirstress, experiencing feelings of detachment, and adjusting to a new culture, a relationship with theirgrandparents can increase the feeling of being nurtured, even at a distance [11]. This relationshipalso addresses older family members’ feelings of loneliness and isolation during aging [6]. Constantand continuous communications allow international students and their grandparents to develop theirrelationship to fit their changing needs [5] and to tighten the social ties between generations.The HCI community has designed technological solutions to address challenges in communica-

tion between generations, for example through the use of household objects to facilitate remotecommunications and to provide a sense of connection [8, 14]. For grandparents and grandchildrenspecifically, research has focused on young children and cast grandparents as playmates, often byengaging children with shared activities during video chat (e.g., [2, 4, 9, 12]). We focus on adult grand-children and design for the changing roles of both grandchild and grandparent during the grandchild’stransition to study abroad. Further, common planning techniques for long-distance communicationmay be ineffective for college-age students who lack a consistent routine [1]. Therefore, we focus onfacilitating asynchronous communication.

FORMATIVE METHODSWe adapt cooperative inquiry [3] to the context of adult international students and their grandparentrelationships. We conducted semi-structured interviews with six international student participantsand one grandparent (Table 2), and then recruited these students as co-researchers to brainstorm withtheir grandparents in situ in order to identify opportunities for designs supporting those relationships.Grandchildren were given a design packet and walked through the protocol before their sessions withtheir grandparents. We conducted debrief sessions with the grandchildren to collect and interprettheir activity notes and asked clarifying questions about grandparents’ communication activities.

We open coded data from seven interview transcripts, design artifacts, and the results of collabora-tive design sessions and debriefs. We used an affinity mapping process to identify clusters of relatedcodes. After several iterations, we identified themes describing challenges faced by grandparents andgrandchildren. These themes informed the implications guiding our system design process [10].

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Figure 3: Primary interactions with theGrandtotem. (Top) The grandparenttouching the Grandtotem notifies thegrandchild. (Middle) Images and videossent by the grandchild appear in thegallery and can be viewed by the grand-parent on the main screen. (Bottom) Thegrandparent can quickly record a videomessage from the Grandtotem and sendit to the grandchild. Video messaging wasselected as a comfortable way for grand-parents to record their thoughts and sendthem directly to their grandchild.

IMPLICATIONS FOR DESIGNAdapting to technologyThe design should have the capacity to support the older generation’s adoption of new communicationtechnologies. Grandparents who had invested in learning to adapt to new technology often had morefrequent and engaged connection with their grandchild. This adaptation is a collaborative process thatinvolves the whole family. “We ... already successfully taught her how to use WeChat (messaging app)...But it takes a while... my uncle’s son taught something about WeChat and she forgot. And my other aunt’sdaughter taught her again... And after several times she finally got it” (P3). Hence, the design shouldbe accessible to grandparents and prompt mutual investment in learning and using the technologyamong family members.

Adapting to changing roles (for both generations)Changes in a student’s life create barriers for maintaining their connections with grandparents. “Idon’t have the habit of calling my grandparents, I used to visit them, but now I’m unable to ... [the lack ofcommunication] just kind of happened. So, I got used to it. ... I just kind of feel that this is a different stagein my life, so some changes that happened” (P5). The role of the grandparent within the relationshipshifts during the grandchild’s transition as well, particularly as both are not present to enact certainfamily rituals such as shared meals. The design should enable grandchildren to maintain a connectionwith their grandparents as roles and responsibilities shift.

Adapting to physical barriersPhysical and temporal separation was highly salient for all participants. “I think a year ago [it] kindastarted to be more common where I just sent her voice messages through WhatsApp. I think it’s moreflexible because of the time differences. ... if I make a phone call I have to arrange a time and everything”(P2). The design should help grandparents and grandchildren manage the complications caused bythese barriers.

GRANDTOTEMWe designed the Grandtotem: a representation of the grandparent/grandchild relationship andasynchronous communication device. The totem itself is a crafted wooden box that provides severalways for grandparents and grandchildren to connect, as shown in Figure 3. The Grandtotem can begiven as a gift from the grandchild to the grandparent, a ritual that serves to mark the start of thetransition. The Grandtotem has three active faces: a non-digital photo frame (Figure 2(3)) to establishthe object as a representation, a digital photo frame (Figure 2(1)) that displays a dynamic slide show of

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(a)

(b)

(c)

Figure 4: The three screen views of theGrandtotem: dynamic slide showof allme-dia from the gallery (a); camera view torecord and send message (b); thumbnailgallery with all images received from thegrandchild (c).

the grandchild’s new life abroad, and a thumbnail gallery (Figure 2(2)) that functions as a photo albumof images received from the grandchild and a timeline of the grandparent-grandchild relationship.Images and videos are captured by the grandchild and sent via email or mobile app, where they

appear in the Grandtotem’s gallery (Figure 2(2)) automatically. These new images or videos arehighlighted in the gallery and trigger white LEDs (Figure 2(6)) to softly pulse to unobtrusively drawthe grandparent’s attention to the device. New images join the rotation of the dynamic slide show(Figure 2(1)). Video messages are recorded and sent by the grandparent to the student by lifting the lidof the Grandtotem (Figure 2(4)). The grandparent can also send a lightweight “touch”, by physicallytouching the base of the totem (Figure 2(5)), sending a low-obligation notification to the grandchildthat their grandparent is thinking of them.

We used several web technologies to prototype the software experience. When the lid is open andthe camera is active, we used WebRTC to change the primary screen (Figure 2(1)) to the camera’sview and feature two buttons: Record and Send (Figure 4(b)). The grandchild receives video messagesas emails. Physically closing the lid returns the Grandtotem’s primary screen to a slideshow (Figure4(a)), reducing the need to learn additional digital interactions. The gallery screen (Figure 2(2)) wasadded to serve as a visible timeline of the grandchild’s recent experiences (Figure 4(c)) and to limitthe confusion caused by incorporating multiple functions into a single interface.

EVALUATION AND FUTUREWORKWe solicited feedback from potential grandparent users, performing in-person and remote demon-strations with three grandparents. To evaluate the Grandtotem from the student’s perspective, twostudent participants agreed to receive mock touch notifications over 10 days and to send images andvideo messages to a mock Grandtotem. Grandparent participants found the design to be intuitiveand simple to use. Images were easily selected from the gallery to display on the main screen, and thecamera opening and closing to start/stop the video seemed sensible. One interesting finding was that,while both parties would be happy to receive video messages, neither was very excited to record andsend their own. Both generations responded positively to the concept of touch notifications. "I likethe fact that all this does is notify them that I’m thinking of them ... so this doesn’t obligate anybody...(torespond)" (G6). "...She must be thinking of me at that moment, I am OK with that... I will take a picture andsend [it] to her." (P1) However, both generations felt that the notifications for new interactions shouldbe more visible and persistent; it is too easy to miss them and thus lose some of the immediacy.Future work should include a field study to understand how the Grandtotem’s usage affects

intergenerational connections over a longer term. Such a field study would also be helpful to explorehow the Grandtotem might affect the dynamic between the grandparent-grandchild connection andconnections with other family members (e.g. grandparents with multiple grandchildren might wantto balance connections with different grandchildren).

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