Jing Wen

Yong Ming Kow
email: ykow@uci.edu

Yunan Chen
email: yunanc@ics.uci.edu

Online Games and Family Ties: Influences of Social Networking Game on Family Relationship

Keywords: Social Network Games, Parents-children Relationship, Domestic Play, Generational Gap

How do online games impact intergenerational family relationships?

To answer this question, we investigated QQ Farm, the most popular online game available on a popular Chinese social networking site. We conducted observations and semi-structured interviews with sixteen pairs of Chinese parents and their adult children. Of the sixteen pairs, seven lived locally; nine pairs lived remotely. The findings of this study suggest that online games provide common conversational topics among local family members and enrich family time. Online games with well-designed shared virtual spaces can also help enhance remote families' awareness of each other's real-life activity. For future intergenerational games, we recommend a game design that requires minimal effort, has a 'healthy' theme, and provides features, such as an activity log and message board, which help maintain game based family communications.

Introduction

Online games allow hundreds of geographically dispersed players to perform shared activities in the same virtual world [START_REF] Flew | Games: Technology, Industry, Culture, New Media: an Introduction[END_REF]. Players come to online gaming sites not only to play, but to socialize [START_REF] Castells | The Internet Galaxy[END_REF]. Formerly perceived as merely "games," online game has become a new environment for individuals to mediate social relationships [START_REF] Nardi | Strangers and friends: collaborative play in world of warcraft[END_REF][4][5] [START_REF] Ducheneaut | Alone together?" Exploring the social dynamics of massively multiplayer online games[END_REF]. While previous studies have focused on how games can strengthen or form new social relationships among players, game play among individuals with existing social relationships, such as intergenerational family members, have seldom been reported in previous literature [3][4][6] [START_REF] Nardi | My Life as a Night Elf Priest: An Anthropological Account of World of Warcraft[END_REF]. In this article, we ask whether online games can be beneficial in reinforcing the social relationships between intergenerational family members with substantial age and value differences. Intergenerational relationships are of special interest to China, a country where the traditional family structure is rapidly undergoing transformation. The traditional Chinese family is a co-residence among three generations of family members. However, co-residence among intergenerational family is becoming increasingly rare as young adults migrate to other regions seeking better employment opportunities [START_REF] Sheng | Intergenerational Relationships and Elderly Care in China: A Global Perspective[END_REF]. Studies have shown that older parents continue to desire traditional family relations, such as the assistance of their children with housework, being able to care for their grandchildren [START_REF] Silverstein | Intergenerational Transfers and Living Arrangements of Older People in Rural China: Consequences for Psychological Well-Being[END_REF], and keeping mutually close contact with their working children [START_REF] Chen | Intergenerational Social Support and the Psychological Well-Being of Older Parents in China[END_REF]. This raises the question how we can continue to maintain these traditional practices given the modern context where intergenerational relationships are practiced at a distance, rather than in the same household [START_REF] Silverstein | Intergenerational Transfers and Living Arrangements of Older People in Rural China: Consequences for Psychological Well-Being[END_REF].

Given the widespread adoption of online gaming in contemporary Chinese society, we are interested in seeing if online games can serve as a new platform for mediating intergenerational family interactions. We examine QQ Farm, a popular multiplayer online game in China that at its height had 6.8 million users logon simultaneously. QQ Farm has a player pool that includes a large number of older parents and their adult children [12] [START_REF]The report of QQ Farm from Chinese website duowan[END_REF]. For our study, we conducted semi-structured interviews to examine how playing QQ Farm impacts the relationships among family members who live locally and those who live remotely. Sixteen pairs of QQ Farm players participated in the study, with a Chinese parent and one adult child in each pair. These pairs include any combination of father or mother with a son or daughter.

The results of the study have shown that social networking games such as QQ Farm can improve the communication among family members locally, and enhance the connectedness between family members remotely. In allowing online players to coconstruct a shared social space from which family members can extrapolate into awareness of real world activities, online games can strengthen existing family ties. At the end of this paper, we will introduce opportunities for designing games that support intergenerational play.

Related Work

Recently, there is an increasing interest in studying social interactions in online game play in the HCI community [START_REF] Williams | From Tree House to Barracks: The Social Life of Guilds in World of Warcraft[END_REF]. Studies have found that social interactions in online games can improve social relationships among players [START_REF] Nardi | Strangers and friends: collaborative play in world of warcraft[END_REF] [6] [START_REF] Nardi | My Life as a Night Elf Priest: An Anthropological Account of World of Warcraft[END_REF], since online games allow large number of players to interact and accomplish shared goals together. Ducheneaut [START_REF] Ducheneaut | Alone together?" Exploring the social dynamics of massively multiplayer online games[END_REF] highlights the designing strategy for creating a sense of social presence in online games. Nardi [START_REF] Nardi | My Life as a Night Elf Priest: An Anthropological Account of World of Warcraft[END_REF] argues that social interactions, particularly those that accomplished shared tasks, are especially desirable within a game environment.

Online game play is increasingly popular among the Chinese. Various reports and news articles often indicate that Chinese parents worry about the negative influence of video games on their children, in particular, the amount of time consumed in game play e.g. [START_REF] Kate | Just Like the Qing Empire. Internet Addiction, MMOGs[END_REF]. Interestingly, these older adults themselves often engage in and benefit from social gaming activities, such as chess, card, and mahjong [START_REF] Glei | Participating in social activities helps preserve cognitive function: an analysis of a longitudinal, population-based study of the elderly[END_REF]. For Chinese parents, social games, when played on computers, often have negative associations, such as game addiction and distraction from school work [START_REF] Kate | Just Like the Qing Empire. Internet Addiction, MMOGs[END_REF]. Lindtner et.al. [START_REF] Lindtner | Situating Productive Play: Online Gaming Practices and Guanxi in China[END_REF] [START_REF] Kow | Culture and Creativity: World of Warcraft Modding in China and the U.S. In Bainbridge[END_REF] found that many urban young Chinese players establish close social ties through game play in Internet cafés [START_REF] Lindtner | Situating Productive Play: Online Gaming Practices and Guanxi in China[END_REF] and in game-related online communities [START_REF] Kow | Culture and Creativity: World of Warcraft Modding in China and the U.S. In Bainbridge[END_REF]. These studies show that online gaming has become a meaningful way for youth to get to know friends and help each other in their offline lives.

While some digital games have been developed for families, these games have restrictive game spaces that only allow a handful of players within the same household. For instance, Age Invaders is an intergenerational game that is designed to bridge family ties by enabling older adults to engage in both in-person and remote play with their children and grandchildren [START_REF] Khoo | Age Invaders: social and physical intergenerational family entertainment[END_REF]. Others games, such as the Magic Box [START_REF] Hilary | Exploring Intergenerational Play across a Distance via a 'Magic Box[END_REF], are developed to encourage the exchange of thought-provoking items between grandparents and grandchildren living remotely, indicating that intergenerational play can be associated with family history, culture, and fun. Voida et al. [START_REF] Voida | The Individual and the Group in Console Gaming[END_REF] studied console games and found mutual conversion between the individual-play and family activities during game playing, showing how players might respond differently according to the social relationship they have with other players.

In addition to games, intergenerational relationships can be promoted by other types of digital devices [START_REF] Romero | Connecting the Family with Awareness Systems, Personal and Ubiquitous Computing[END_REF] [START_REF] Tee | Exploring communication and sharing between extended families[END_REF]. Digital Family Portrait is designed to transmit iconic projections of older adults' daily activities to their remote family members. Digital Family Portrait allows family members to know whether the older adults are active and well on a daily basis [START_REF] Rowan | Digital Family Portrait Field Trial: Support for Aging in Place[END_REF]. Similarly, Family Window (FW) is designed as an always-on video media space to connect family members residing in two households through video cameras [START_REF] Tejinder | The Family Window: The Design and Evaluation of a Domestic Media Space[END_REF]. Using Family Window, family members can share their daily activities and increase their feelings of connectedness with each other. Devices such as SPARCS [START_REF] Brush | SPARCS: exploring sharing suggestions to enhance family connectedness[END_REF] and Wayve [START_REF] Lindley | Designing a Technological Playground: A Field Study of the Emergence of Play in Household Messaging[END_REF] are also designed to encourage information and photo sharing among family members.

Online games are becoming increasingly popular among the Chinese. Their penetration into intergenerational social space thus providing and the social-cultural landscape continues to transform Chinese families, understanding the possible impact of online gaming in family relationships could be vital. The literature suggests that games and other form of digital devices can be used to leverage intergenerational family interactions; nevertheless, there has not yet a study on the use of online game by intergenerational family members. In what follows, we report the findings of our study on QQ Farm and discuss possible implications for future game design.

3

The Game -QQ Farm QQ Farm is an online game developed by Tencent, Inc. in 2009, and residing in Tencent's social networking site QZone. Social Networking Sites [START_REF] Boyd | Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship[END_REF] are web-based services that allow users to communicate and construct social connections with other users. And Tencent is the provider of many popular Internet services including the QQ Instant Messenger. On March 31, 2010, it was reported that there were 568.6 million active user accounts on all QQ service platforms including QQ Farm, QZone, and QQ Instant Messenger. On QQ Farm, players act as farm owners and manage their own farms. Figure 1 shows what QQ Farm looks like in the game environment. In addition to common farming activities such as cultivating, irrigating, and harvesting crops as real farmers do, players can also visit farms owned by their SNS friends. On the farms owned by their friends, players can perform limited actions-some helpful, some mischievous. Helpful actions include weeding and irrigating, whereas mischievous actions include stealing the other players' mature crops. Each activity a player performs on her own farm is rewarded by experience points or, with virtual gold coins through the selling of mature crops. Accumulated experience points can raise the player's level in the game. The higher the player's game level is, the more privileges she has to expand her farming field. Similarly, the more coins the player has, the more "money" she has to purchase expensive crops and fields. Weeding and irrigating for other players are considered helpful in the gaming environment since it helps the other farm owners obtain additional experience points or coins. On the contrary, stealing other players' mature crops is considered a mischievous action since the owner is no longer able to gain virtual gold coins by selling her stolen crops.

In addition to game play itself, each player has access to a personal message board associated with their farm [Figure 2]. The personal message board shows log information about one's farm, including both helpful and mischievous actions. As shown on Figure 2, a player can see who came to visit their farm and when, and what they did to it. Players can also personalize their space through naming and decorating their own farms.

After its launch in 2009, QQ Farm became immediately popular among Chinese players. In general, people were intrigued by the fact that QQ Farm had attracted a large population of older adult players, and the family play of QQ Farm was soon reported by various newspapers and media sources as a new Chinese social phenomenon [12] [START_REF]The report of QQ Farm from Chinese website duowan[END_REF]. For instance, Net Ease 163.com, one of major news portal sites in China, published a story about a mother using QQ Farm as an education resource to help her child understand botany [12]. Another article described how a seventy-year old grandma played QQ Farm with her granddaughter remotely [START_REF]The report of QQ Farm from Chinese website duowan[END_REF]. Following these reported stories, we conducted a qualitative study to examine the influence of QQ Farm game play on family relationships.

Methodology

We conducted a qualitative study from March 2010 to November 2010. We examine the impact of online gaming on intergenerational family relationships. As described in the literature review section, tensions arise when adult children move out of a home where the parents still hold traditional Chinese family values. We studied only parents and adult children because of this, excluding children below the age of 18, who were more likely to live at home

Participants

Sixteen pairs of parent-adult children dyads participated in our. Participants were recruited using snowball sampling method. The first two participants were recruited from the university where the authors are affiliated, while the rest of the participants were referred by participants interviewed previously. The snowball sampling method appears to be most appropriate way to recruit family members who play online games due to the social property of QQ Farm.

Of the sixteen parent-adult children dyads we studied, seven pairs live in the same households, or in nearby neighborhoods in the Hubei and Sichuan provinces. We refer to these pairs as "local families" since they were able to meet in person frequently. The other nine pairs lived in different cities. While all the parents we interviewed live in China, their adult children lived remotely in America, Japan, Australia or Denmark. Table 1 summarizes the participants of the study based on their family relationship and local/remote living conditions. The age of parents ranges from 47 to 64. The age of adult children ranges from 18 to 36. These sixteen pairs of participants contain three conditions: both members of the dyad are active players (9 pairs); only one member of the dyad (either the parent or the child) is a player (4 pairs); and both members of the dyad are non-players (3 pairs). The non-playing participants served as a baseline for us to understand the behaviors of the "dual-play" pairs. By comparing intergenerational communication patterns between "dual-play" pairs with those having one or more non-playing participants, we found that online games could indeed improve intergenerational communications. It is worth mentioning that among the nine pairs of dual-play pairs, four pairs were local and the other five were remote families.

Data Collection

Human subject study approval was obtained from the university where the researchers are affiliated prior to data collection. We acquired verbal consent from every participant and recorded only their screen names used in the games. Nevertheless, all names reported in this paper are pseudonyms.

In the study, we first observed the game play behaviors of the six pairs of dual-play families at QQ Farm for two weeks. Observing game play helped us to understand the basic behaviors participants demonstrated online. We collected the game logs from the personal message board of each participant. These logs recorded all the players' interactions in the game space. The observation data were collected twice a day, once in the morning and once at night. 4132 messages were gathered during the two weeks. Excluding messages relaying the game play records between the farm owner and their other friends, 319 messages were found relating to interactions between family members, accounting for 8% of the total logged messages.

Based on the family play behaviors observed online, we developed semi-structured interview questions. The interview study was extended to single-play or non-play pairs in order to better understand the impact of game playing on family relationships. The interview questions were centered on game play and family relationships. Specifically, we asked:

-How often do participants play QQ Farm? -How does participant play with their family members? -How does the game impact their family relationships?

When possible, we interviewed subjects in-person or by telephone. When in-person or telephone interviews were impossible, we conducted instant messaging interviews.

Of the thirty-two subjects, five were interviewed in person, twenty-three were interviewed by telephone, and the remaining four were interviewed through instant messaging. The length of the interviews ranged from 30 to 60 minutes. Data were voice recorded transcribed in Chinese, and then translated into English.

Data Analysis

Interview transcriptions were coded using grounded theory [START_REF] Glaser | The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research[END_REF] to identify recurring themes. The coding process started with the extractions of themes that relate to family relationships. To ensure the dependability of the results, three researchers conducted an independent coding on a sample size respectively, which were four pairs of transcriptions chosen randomly from sixteen pairs of participants. The intergenerational relationships of theses four pairs include a mother and son, father and son, mother and daughter, and father and daughter. After the initial coding, we compared and discussed the four sets of themes coded by each individual researcher. The initial themes and relationships were identified gradually in a manner of convergence.

In the second stage, one researcher coded the rest of the data iteratively based on the initial themes. When all codes and memos were collected, the researchers grouped them in line with the categories or properties they represented. Based on this arrangement of data, this study examines the online game playing behaviors in both local and remote families.

Findings

In this section, we first describe general game playing behaviors demonstrated through observational data, and then introduce the diverse impact of game play on the local and remote families.

Online Game Playing

As mentioned earlier, we observed six pairs of dual-play families' game activities for two weeks and recorded 319 messages between the six pairs of participants during these two weeks. All families routinely logged onto the game space on a daily basis. Table 2 shows the quantitative data from log analysis. All participants had more than 6 months of gaming experience and reached at least the 15th level according to the game ranks designed in QQ Farm (0 as the lowest and 50 as the highest in the current game design). The participants logged on 1to 6 times per day, with 5 to 30 minutes spent on the game space each time. The log analysis indicates that the participants played QQ Farm in a relatively flexible manner as the game does not require players to play simultaneously over a long period of time. Some of our participants played QQ Farm while engaging in their other daily activities. Figure 3 shows a participant studying while playing QQ Farm. This participant told us that he was afraid his mature crops might be stolen if he did not gather them in time. He took occasional glances at his farm while studying. Because QQ Farm does not require undivided attention, and allows players to perform other tasks while playing the game, most of our participants had considered the game as less intrusive than most other video games. Thus, our participants were more receptive to QQ Farm than other video games. Our study suggests that Chinese parents and their adult children had different motivations when playing online games. Most parents started playing because their children were playing, whereas the adult children played because they were interested in the game itself. As one participant said:

It was amazing to watch the growth process of different plants… This game let me know what some regional plant species look like and how they grow.

Farming in the game space provides players with an opportunity to connect with a completely new environment and helps them relax away from their daily routines. The game space also serves as a social space in which family can interact. As a gamebased interaction, QQ Farm greatly strengthens social ties and family relationships. The dual-play families frequently interacted in the game space, regardless of whether they resided at the same household or not. Family members visited each other's farm from 3 to 24 times a day. (Note: each game log in may be associated with multiple visits). The dual-play dyads admitted that they like to check on each other's farms; they liked to know what plants their parents or children were cultivating and whether they could steal or help each other in the game space. The other forms of interactions among family members, such as face-to-face talks, phone calls, or emails may only happen once or twice a week on average; but dual-play parents and children interacted on the game space multiple times a day. Noteworthy is that although we collected data on all types of family play behaviors, the comparison among dual-play, singleplay and non-play families is not the main focus of the current paper; rather, the nonplay group served as a basis from which we could understand dual-play behaviors.

Online Game Adding Joy to Conversations among Local Families

The local families live in the same household or in nearby neighborhoods and can see or visit each other frequently. However, the close physical proximity did not always correspondent to tight family relationships. Differences in education, culture, and values between the dyads often lead to conflict and tension in their relationships [START_REF] Goh | Only children' and their coalition of parents: Considering grandparents and parents as joint caregivers in urban Xiamen, China[END_REF]. Counter intuitively, this tension may be amplified among local families due to the frequent face-to-face interactions.

In local family dyads, QQ Farm mediated interactions between family members such that their relationship may improve. For example, Su is the primary caregiver for her elderly father and lives in the same household with him. Their interactions were often intense due to frequent disagreement in care-giving activities. They found a way to show concern to each other through QQ Farm.

Su: daughter, 36 years old, living in Chongqing city:

This game [QQ Farm] opened a door to us to become farmers----the role we couldn't be in the practical world, it was exciting that we can plant and harvest just like a real farmer...We found more things to talk about and found more joy in our conversation... when I found that my father's crops were mature, I would remind him to gather them. If I were at home, I would tell him in--person, else, I would give him a call... In Chinese, "joy愉快" means happiness 欢乐, and lightheartedness 轻松. This example shows how online game like QQ Farm provides new ways which pleasant conversation can happen among family members.

At the same time, when daily conversation becomes intense, gaming activities can act as pretexts and reasons for making phone calls to family members. For local families, the barriers in maintaining close family ties are not due to the lack of faceto-face interactions, but rather due to differences in values between the two generations. In this situation, game space allows both parties to engage in conversations where these disagreements need not arise.

Even for local families that have well-maintained family ties, QQ Farm can enrich shared family time. Wang is a retired mother with two adult daughters. In Wang's experience, QQ Farm reinforces their existing family ties.

Wang, 63 years old, living in Wuhan city:

Our family members were all playing QQ Farm... every time my daughters and their families came visit, we shared tips on how to play the game...my grandchild would sometimes join us [at her computer]to play together...this game fascinated everyone in our family! In Wang's case, her children and grandchild played with her and shared the experiences that occurred in the game space in real-life interactions. The use of a shared computer contributes to the building of family ties since family members have reasons to occupy the same room and talk. Here the QQ Farm game was integrated into family time, and turned into a new family activity.

Online Game Serves as an Awareness System for Remote Family Members

Unlike local families, remote families are not able to see each other on a daily basis. Family members may also live in different time zones making it harder to make phone calls. In this case, family interactions may rely on either the common leisure time they have or on asynchronous communication that happens infrequently. Resonating with this study [START_REF] Cao | Understanding Family Communication across Time Zone[END_REF], non-playing family groups living at long-distances from each other also reported the challenge of staying connected and maintaining close family ties with each other.

Compared with the non-play families, dual-play families use the shared game spaces as another way to interact with family members. In other words, game play is turned into a family interaction that ties family members closer together. Zhang is a mother who was proud that both her son and daughter were attending graduate schools in the United States. Due to the time differences between the US and China As a result, Zhang could not make as many phone calls with her children as she had liked. When Zhang had free time, her son and daughter were studying in the schools; and when her children were free, Zhang was working at her company. Despite these barriers, Zhang managed to connect with her children daily through QQ Farm.

Zhang: mother, 57 years old, living in Wuhan city:

Last year, my son and daughter went to the US. I missed them very much... Whenever we met in the farms, I feel that they were just next to me... At times I would be too busy to manage my farm and my children would help me in the game space, and that makes me happy.

Parents like Zhang find social connections with their children when their children visit their farms. The farms, as shared virtual spaces, allow players to perform activities that greatly affect each other beyond the game space. Zhang perceives the helpful actions in the game to be representative of how much her children care for her.

In this case, family ties are strengthened through seemingly trivial game activities.

Because of its asynchronous nature, this game play is able to enrich otherwise intermittent family interactions, when these other forms of interactions become more difficult.

The game space gives remote family members the opportunity to observe each other's online activities. And interestingly, this online observation had allowed many participants stay cognizant of their family members' activities in real-life. Jean, a Ph.D. student of computer science told us how she would know where her father was.

Jean, daughter, 28 years old, living in California:

I love to guess at what my father is doing by examining his activity log...for instance, when he went on business trips, his farm would become unattended for a while… If later I found his farm gets cleaned up, crops gathered, and new crops sown, I know that he had come back home... For Jean, the game space allows her to guess father's real-life daily activities based on his game activities. In this sense, the use of online gaming is turned into a system through which players are able to stay aware of each other's daily life [START_REF] Romero | Connecting the Family with Awareness Systems, Personal and Ubiquitous Computing[END_REF]. Like Digital Family Portrait [START_REF] Rowan | Digital Family Portrait Field Trial: Support for Aging in Place[END_REF], our study suggests that the game space also has the potential to deliver awareness information amongst family members, although in a less direct manner. In the game space, a person can identify another player's daily game routines to discover atypical behaviors that may be influenced by an event that has happened in real-life. Our participants had not found such observations to be invasive of their private life. But rather, they were alternate ways for family members to care for each other. Some studies have found that working children have treated communication devices such as the Digital Family Portrait as a replacement for the occasional phone call [START_REF] Rowan | Digital Family Portrait Field Trial: Support for Aging in Place[END_REF]. However, we have not found this to be a problem for online games such as QQ Farm. The way of interacting with family members can also be used purposely to deliver certain information. Yong, an elderly mother living in the countryside, created a personalized message on her farm to show how she missed her son.

Yong, mother, 64 years old, living in Hubei province: As shown in Figure 4, Yong's personalized message indicated that she had wished that her son would visit her more frequently. However, Yong had also wanted to avoid bringing up her feelings in telephone calls for it may become an emotional burden for her distant son. As a result, she used QQ Farm as a system to deliver this message subtly. In this case, the game space was used to deliver messages that may be too sensitive to bring up in direct conversation.

As described in this section, online gaming can connect distant family members. In addition, the game space also allows family members to stay cognizant of each other's real-life activities. QQ Farm can also be used to convey information that is inappropriate in direct conversation.

DISCUSSION

In summary, our research suggests that online games can bolster intergenerational relationships. Online gaming can support intergenerational relationships in two primary ways. First, it generates new conversational topics for local families. Second, it can be used to track the real-life activities of family living at a distance. In this section, we discuss how online games can reinforce existing family relationships. Online games become common conversational topics for both parents and adult children. When game activities become a family conversation topic, the tension caused by generation gaps is hidden beneath the engagement of game play. When family members live apart, common conversation topics may be difficult to establish between intergenerational family members, since they may have very few common daily activities to share. Discussing online games often ignites fruitful conversations that eventually strengthen intergenerational relationships.

The second finding is that online games can act as an awareness system to keep family members informed about each other's daily activities, since real-life daily routines are often reflected in online activity patterns, e.g., if Jean's father changes a real-life activity, his online activity is likely to be affected as well. As we saw in Yong's story, online activity can also be manipulated to express unspoken needs or concerns to family members.

Furthermore, online games provide awareness information for family members that are geographically distributed. It is critical for family members to co-construct a shared virtual space that keeps logging activities that can be seen by each other. A shared virtual space provides opportunity for players to leave traces of actions that are associated with their real-life activities. Online traces, such as when and what the other family member was engaged in, can be extrapolated into an awareness system of a player's real-life activity.

The first finding suggests that the importance of designing a game space that is acceptable by both generations. Games with themes that are perceived by older parents as "healthy" are more likely to be adopted as a family play platform. QQ Farm is considered a healthy and educational environment since parents believe their children can learn agriculture and botany knowledge through game play. The playful activities embedded in the game arouse participants' interests in the game and sustain their interpersonal interactions that are mediated through the game play.

In QQ Farm, two features allow players to trace game activities online: the activity log and the message board. The activity log automatically records activities associated with a certain farm; and the message board can be used as a proactive communication tool for players to pass on information to other players intentionally. Our findings suggest that both features can help family members become more aware of each other's activities.

For family members living apart, the game keeps them aware of some of their remote members' activities, but also augments and enriches existing communications, such as increasing the chances of telephone conversations as well the conservation topics. Beyond family members, closely connected players in other social relationships can also extrapolate each other's real-life activities from their virtual activity patterns, suggesting that online games may similarly augment other real-life relationships when social and cultural barriers hinder other forms of communications, such as in some corporate workgroups.

CONCLUSION

The paper highlights how online games can support intergenerational relationships.

Online games can serve to strengthen social bonds underneath the pretense of online game play. Online games can also serve as an awareness system to help derive remote family member's real-life activities. But to achieve these benefits, designers need to develop a game that appeals to players of widely varied ages and backgrounds. Some of the design considerations that make a game truly intergenerational include: requiring minimal effort yet scalable to other committed players, containing themes that appeal to user of all ages, and providing features such as activity log and message board that capture online activities and communication.

Fig. 1 .

 1 Fig.1. Screenshot of the first author's QQ Farm

Fig. 2 .

 2 Fig.2. Screenshot of a personal message board in QQ Farm

Figuer 3 .

 3 Figuer 3. Playing QQ Farm but not delaying the studying

I

  believed this farm can convey emotional feelings... I changed the name of my farm to "come home whenever you can"看常回家看看. I hoped my son would come home as often as he can. I know that he is busy [with school work] so I do not want to tell him too directly [or he may get distracted].

Figure. 4 .

 4 Figure.4. The bulletin board in Yong's field

Table 1 . The parents-children relationships

 1

	Parents-children	Number of	Local	Remote
	relationships	pairs	families	families
	Father-Daughter	4	2	2
	Mother-Daughter	4	2	2
	Father-Son	3	1	2
	Mother-Son	5	2	3
	Total	16	7	9

Table 2 . Log analysis of six pairs of dual-play families

 2

	Relation	Parents-	Age	Game ranks	Logins (per	Playing	Interaction
	pairs	children relationship		(Levels)	day)	Time (Minutes per day)	messages (2 weeks)
	R1	Father	54	38	6	30	93
		Daughter	28	18	6	25
	R2	Father	63	19	2	5	58
		Son	28	15	5	20
	R3	Mother	63	22	3	10	47
		Son	28	15	5	20
	R4	Father	63	34	1	5	37
		Daughter	34	19	5	15
	R5	Mother	60	41	6	30	49
		Son	29	39	4	15
	R6	Mother	65	26	6	30	35
		Daughter	36	24	5	10


Florian Geyer

Ulrike Pfeil

Jochen Budzinski

Anita Höchtl

Harald Reiterer

AffinityTable -A Hybrid Surface for Supporting Affinity Diagramming

Keywords: design tools, collaborative design, affinity diagramming, realitybased interaction, digital pen & paper, hybrid interactive surfaces

Using affinity diagramming as an example, we investigate interaction techniques for supporting collaborative design activities. Based on an observational study, we identified design guidelines that need to be addressed to find a close fit to embodied practice. Using this knowledge, we designed and implemented AffinityTable, a hybrid surface for supporting affinity diagramming. The tool combines digital pen & paper with an interactive table and tangible tokens. An additional vertical display is used to support reflection and group coordination.

Introduction

Affinity diagramming is a collaborative design method applied early in the design process for analyzing a design problem or to create first design solutions. It is typically practiced with pen & paper and a shared surface such as a whiteboard or a large wall. It consists of three main phases: (i) generating (participants individually create content on sticky notes), (ii) sharing (participants present and collect notes), and (iii) structuring (participants arrange notes into meaningful categories). While teams of designers often apply similar techniques within the design process, only few existing digital tools explicitly support these without imposing limitations on the workflow, social coordination and embodiment of thought. Beyer & Holtzblatt [START_REF] Beyer | Contextual design: defining customer-centered systems[END_REF] explicitly recommend traditional media for practicing affinity diagramming since using desktop-based digital tools would isolate participants, leading to a breakdown of communication that is vital for a shared understanding in the group. However, in this paper we argue that emerging technologies, like digital pen & paper, large highresolution displays, multi-touch and tangible interaction, can be utilized to overcome these limitations and may offer additional benefits that go beyond what is possible with traditional physical-only tools. Therefore, we contribute AffinityTable, a hybrid tabletop system for supporting affinity diagramming. It allows users to follow their traditional workflow and embodied practice by still augmenting typical tasks in a lightweight way. Furthermore, it preserves the benefits of physical material during divergent idea generation activities, while enhancing convergent activities through artifact handling support and by providing focus and context views.

Our work extends related research in computing environments for co-located design work. The Designer's Outpost [START_REF] Klemmer | The Designers' Outpost: A tangible interface for collaborative web site design[END_REF] introduced paper-based interaction concepts in the context of collaborative web site design. It combines physical sticky notes with an interactive whiteboard system. By using overhead image capture, notes can be combined with digital ink annotations. The Shared Design Space [START_REF] Haller | Shared design space: sketching ideas using digital pens and a large augmented tabletop setup[END_REF] combines digital pen & paper with projected images on a pen-operated interactive table for highresolution drawing with multiple users. Optical marker tracking is utilized to recognize the location of paper on the table. Pictionaire [START_REF] Hartmann | Pictionaire: supporting collaborative design work by integrating physical and digital artifacts[END_REF] uses overhead image capture and projection to combine physical artifacts with digital annotations for collaborative design work on a hybrid tabletop system. BrainStorm [START_REF] Hilliges | Designing for collaborative creative problem solving[END_REF] combines multiple pen-operated displays to support brainstorming processes. Digital notes are created on an interactive table and transferred to a wall projection for discussion and clustering. The Designer's Environment [START_REF] Tse | Exploring true multi-user multimodal interaction over a digital table[END_REF] supports the KJ creativity method with multimodal interactions for grouping and linking of digital notes on a tabletop system. Handwritten notes are sent to the table from tablet PCs. Text recognition is used on the tablets for retrieving images from the web according to the content of notes.

Our approach extends these efforts with hybrid interaction techniques that make use of both physical and digital representations to better integrate with the social and embodied characteristics of existing workflows. Hybrid surfaces are proposed in order to explore the boundaries between direct touch interfaces and tangible elements [START_REF] Kirk | Putting the physical into the digital: issues in designing hybrid interactive surfaces[END_REF]. In the following, we describe design guidelines that we derived from an observational study before presenting our proposed workspace design and interaction techniques.

Design Guidelines

One of the main ideas of reality-based interaction [START_REF] Jacob | Reality-based interaction: a framework for post-WIMP interfaces[END_REF] is to build upon characteristics of reality to make interfaces more natural. Jacob et al. recommend looking at reality first to identify critical issues. Computational power may then be used to address those issues that do not work well and can be improved by using technology. However, mechanisms that work good in reality should be preserved. We propose to use this understanding for mapping our potential design space. Therefore, we conducted an observational study of students practicing affinity diagramming. The goal was to identify issues that are critical to the success of the technique. These findings are to be used as a foundation for the design of adequate hybrid interaction techniques that combine physical and digital representations.

We observed three groups of students within a practical session in context of an interaction design course. The group sessions were videotaped and lasted between 1.5 and 2 hours. In addition, each group session was observed by a researcher who made notes of the group activities. Based on the procedures of qualitative content analysis, separate categories were inductively developed for following aspects: interaction with physical artifacts, use of different workspaces and attention and coordination. In the following, we will only describe the most important findings that led to the design of AffinityTable and relate them to supporting results from other sources. By relating our findings to that of other researches, we can improve validity of our results and may infer specific guidelines for the design of an adequate digital workspace. Based on our analysis we found that paper artifacts are especially useful during divergent activities, like individual ideation, where a large number of different artifacts are created in rapid cycles. Participants also used paper notes for individual reflection, like flipping through created content to search for inspiration. This is in line with results from a study reported by Cook & Bailey [START_REF] Cook | Designers' use of paper and the implications for informal tools[END_REF] on the use of paper in professional design practice. The authors conclude that paper is highly appreciated due to its unique affordances that support both fluent access and social interactions. Klemmer et al. [START_REF] Klemmer | The Designers' Outpost: A tangible interface for collaborative web site design[END_REF] also emphasize the benefits of paper material for informal design activities. Therefore, we conclude that paper may be used to support individual ideation and reflection activities.

The table was mainly used for individual work. Personal workspaces (see Fig. 1,b) were used for reflection and for preparing content for presentation in the group. However, collaborative work like presenting and discussing took place at the whiteboard. This finding is supported by Vyas [START_REF] Vyas | Artful surfaces in design practices[END_REF], who observed the appropriation of physical surfaces in design studios. The author reports that horizontal surfaces mainly serve as a space for action, while vertical surfaces are useful for reflection during convergent activities. We argue that this is due to the differences in accessibility of artifacts and display space. However, we observed that when engaging in actions during convergent phases, the vertical display was frequently blocked by some members of the group (see Fig. 1,a,d), thereby limiting access and visibility to the other participants, which may lead to communication problems. This issue however correlates with the number of participants. Yet, the transfer of notes between personal and shared workspace, which was required for presentation, was accompanied with physical restrictions (see Fig. 1,c) due to the distance between these work surfaces. Like other researchers [START_REF] Hilliges | Designing for collaborative creative problem solving[END_REF][START_REF] Tse | Exploring true multi-user multimodal interaction over a digital table[END_REF], we also consider personal workspaces as essential for the efficiency of creative group work as they moderate social factors like evaluation apprehension by providing a semi-private retreat from the group. Other social factors like production blocking and free riding are partly addressed by the design technique itself. Therefore, the basic workflow of a design technique should not be changed. During phases of discussion, we observed rapid changes of attention between personal and shared workspaces and between detailed discussions of specific artifacts (see Fig. 1,e) and coordination tasks that required an overview over all artifacts. However, we also found that this practice may lead to coordination and communication issues when dealing with a large number of artifacts during discussion. At some points, participants had problems following discussion due to rapid shifts of attention or because some artifacts on the shared work surface were blocked by other participants.

We therefore summarize our findings with following design guidelines: support individual ideation and reflection with paper (DG1); support personal workspaces (DG2); provide support for switching between action and reflection (DG3); ease the transfer of artifacts between workspaces (DG4); preserve the workflow of the original technique (DG5).

A Hybrid Surface for Supporting Affinity Diagramming

AffinityTable was designed in an iterative design process. In a first step, a workspace was developed to address the findings from our study. In a second step, specific hybrid interaction techniques were designed to support and augment the workflow and tasks within affinity diagramming. Fig. 2. AffinityTable combines different workspaces by using digital pen & paper, an interactive table with tangible tools and a coupled, high-resolution vertical display.

Workspace Design

Our goal when designing AffinityTable was to replicate the benefits of reality and to improve identified issues by using interactive technology. The physical workspace used in practice was composed of one vertical and one horizontal work surface (see Fig. 1,a). We found that these work surfaces are important for preserving the workflow of the technique. Therefore, we decided to keep the basic layout, but to provide smoother transitions between action and a reflection by the means of a virtual workspace across two interactive displays (DG3). Fig. 2 shows the final workspace design, which is based on an interactive table for collaboratively interacting and reflecting on a focused region of the workspace (shared action space, see Fig. 2,a) and a high-resolution wall display (process reflection space, see Fig. 2,b) for reflecting on the overall progress of the process. Thereby, the table displays a magnified region of the whole workspace, which is shown on the wall display. The workspace can be navigated on the table with panning gestures. A focus box on the vertical display visualizes the region that is currently displayed on the table. Digital pen & paper is used on the non-interactive rim of the table for supporting individual ideation and reflection (personal spaces, see Fig. 2,c). Personalized interactive areas at the corners of the table (transfer spaces, see Fig. 2,d) provide a zone for additional individual actions. The coupled vertical display can also be used for dynamic views on selected artifacts during phases of discussion (see Fig. 2, right).

Interaction Techniques

AffinityTable supports the workflow of affinity diagramming with hybrid interaction techniques for copying, clustering, piling, and collecting. Additional functionalities that augment physical practice are integrated with interaction techniques for highlighting, focusing, searching, and image retrieval. We aimed at incorporating tangible elements for improving visibility of actions and group awareness.

Copying. In physical practice, notes are created and reflected individually in personal workspaces. AffinityTable preserves this ability by providing small paper notes and digital pens. Handwriting and sketches are instantly transferred to the system via a wireless connection. Physical notes can be copied to the shared workspace by placing them on the interactive table (see Fig. 2, center). A digital copy of the physical note appears within the virtual workspace, while the physical copy remains in the personal workspace. This technique allows sharing and presenting of artifacts without physical restrictions while still preserving the ability to reflect upon all individual contents in the personal workspace throughout the process (DG1,DG2). It also enables rapid transfer between the personal and the shared workspace (DG3,DG4). Clustering and Piling. During convergent activities, notes are discussed and organized into meaningful arrangements. Once copied into the shared workspace, digital notes can be dragged, rotated and flicked by using multi-touch manipulations on the interactive table. It is also possible to change the color of notes or to delete notes, which are basic requirements for clustering. To facilitate the collaborative organization of notes into groups, we included a simple clustering algorithm that automatically aligns and associates notes when released close to each other (see Fig. 3,a,b,c). Piles of notes can be created by releasing notes on top other notes. Clusters and piles can be moved by dragging them with multiple fingers (see Fig. 3,d,e,f). These interaction techniques closely resemble collaborative sorting actions at the whiteboard (DG5). However, since all user action is focused on a horizontal surface, which is accessible to all participants, this might lead to more equal access and increased awareness of actions within the group.

Collecting. When collecting notes or clusters from arbitrary locations within the shared workspace, it is a tedious task to move them individually via touch manipulations across longer distances in the virtual workspace. In physical practice, notes can be collected into mobile piles (see Fig. 1,c) and thus can be easily transferred to remote locations. AffinityTable replicates this ability by providing multiple two-sided tokens. Users can select digital notes by using the colored side of the tokens (see Fig. 3,g). The notes are then marked in that color. By turning over the tokens and placing them on the table with the blank side, selected notes are moved to this new location (see Fig. 3,h). Because multiple tokens can be used at the same time, this technique also enables loosely coupled parallel work. The tangibility of the tokens and the colored marking used as a proxy for mobile piles may increase the visibility of these parallel actions.

Highlighting and Focusing. During discussion, deictic references on notes are often used as a form of communication and for coordination in the group (see Fig. 1,d,e). AffinityTable augments these interactions by providing additional functionality. When touching digital notes, they are highlighted around their border with a glowing effect. Each highlight fades out after five seconds. When clustering notes, the fading glow implicitly communicates a history of actions. In addition, a token can be used to focus on a specific region within the workspace during reflection (DG3). By turning the token (see Fig. 4, a), the users can change the zoom-factor of the magnified region displayed on the vertical display (see Fig. 2, right). We chose a single tangible element as focusing tool because we believe its limited accessibility may stimulate negotiations about the focus of discussion. Searching. AffinityTable provides a lightweight search function based on the author of notes. By tapping personal symbols that are available in the transfer spaces at the corners of the table (see Fig. 4,b), the notes created by the corresponding user are marked with that symbol (see Fig. 4,c). This allows participants to look up the responsible author of a particular issue or idea during discussion. It also allows reflecting on participants contributions to certain clusters and therefore may provide information about consensus in the group (DG3). This search function may introduce positive effects by reducing free riding, but may also have negative effects by increasing evaluation apprehension. However, since notes are anonymous throughout the session and identity is only revealed on demand, this technique may stimulate individual contributions without putting too much pressure on participants.

Image Retrieval. When presenting ideas and issues it can be helpful to add additional information to make a clear point. Therefore, AffinityTable provides image retrieval based on the content of notes. When placing notes into transfer spaces at the corners of the table, five related images from the web are displayed around the physical note. Users may then drag digital images along with a copy of the physical note to the shared workspace (see Fig. 4,d,e). Images in the workspace can be clustered along with digital notes. Hence, they can also be used to visually point out important clusters by adding representative images. This technique may have positive influence on fixation effects because the selection of images can be used to further open up divergent activities. Instead of using images from the web, this technique may also be used to augment notes with other data from custom design knowledge repositories.

Implementation

AffinityTable runs on a custom-built interactive table that measures 128cm x 157cm x 105cm. The non-interactive rim (20cm) was designed for supporting leaning, personal workspaces and for avoiding involuntary interaction. The table provides adequate space for up to five users. The graphics are rear-projected with a WUXGA projector (1900px x 1200px). Multi-touch and object recognition is provided with IR illumination and three tiled XGA cameras (1024px x 768px). The vertical display measures 76cm x 162cm and features 4K resolution (4096px x 2160px). The software runs on two networked workstations with MS Windows 7. The interface is implemented using the ZOIL framework [START_REF] Jetter | Model-based design and prototyping of interactive spaces for information interaction[END_REF] that integrates WPF multi-touch controls with distributed user interface synchronization and zooming functionality. We use ReacTIVision1 for marker tracking and Squidy [START_REF] König | Interactive design of multimodal user interfacesreducing technical and visual complexity[END_REF] for finger tracking. Data from Anoto's ADP-301 digital pens is received via Bluetooth by using the Anoto streaming API2 . Text recognition is implemented using MS Windows 7 SDK. We use the Yahoo image search service for retrieving digital images.

Conclusion

In this paper we presented AffinityTable, a hybrid surface for supporting affinity diagramming. Based on an observational study, we identified design guidelines for a close fit to embodied practice. This knowledge was used for the design of a workspace that combines digital pen & paper with an interactive table and tangible tools for supporting the basic workflow of the design technique and for providing additional functionalities. A vertical display is used for supporting reflection-in-action and for enhancing discussion and coordination. The described interaction techniques can be adapted for similar design techniques that share the phases of idea-generation, idea-presentation and idea-discussion. However, this paper does not provide empirical evidence on the positive effects of the proposed interaction techniques. In future work we will improve AffinityTable by adding more powerful clustering techniques. Eventually, a user study is necessary to gain a deeper understanding of the tool's effects on the process of the design technique, efficiency and social factors.

Fig. 1 .

 1 Fig. 1. An observation revealed important characteristics of embodied practice.

Fig. 3 .

 3 Fig. 3. Clustering notes with touch manipulations (a,b,c); moving clusters of notes by using multiple fingers (d,e,f); collecting notes by using colored tokens (g,h).

Fig. 4 .

 4 Fig. 4. Focusing on a specific region in the workspace (a); searching for notes (b,c); retrieving and adding images based on the content of notes (d,e).

http://reactivision.sourceforge.net

http://www.anoto.com

Acknowledgements. This research is funded by the German Research Foundation DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) under grant number RE 1843/3-1.