Ticket-to-talk-television: designing for the circumstantial nature of everyday social interaction

In this paper we discuss a particular perspective on interactivity and sociability in the design of new TV technologies for social interaction. We will argue that current research on Social TV builds on a too narrow conception of interaction in everyday social life. In consequence, rather than turning the TV media itself into an arena for peer-to-peer synchronous interaction amongst TV viewers we will discuss the idea of Social TV as a resource that when part of a larger socio-material fabric can help accommodate the circumstantial nature of social interactions as they emerge and play out on a moment-to-moment basis throughout everyday life beyond the TV screens. We take the phenomenon of ticket-to-talk as our point of departure when analyzing observations made during a study of the ways senior citizens go about socializing in everyday face-to-face situations. We then discuss how this analysis in combination with a series of design-oriented workshops with a group of senior citizens, have guided the design of our Ticket-to-Talk-Television example concept. We will reflect upon the overall approach as well as the design activities that were undertaken in relation to the concept developed.