Exploring pet video chat: the remote awareness and interaction needs of families with dogs and cats

Authors:
Carman Neustaedter;Jennifer Golbeck
Affiliations:
Simon Fraser University, Surrey, British Columbia, Canada;University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, Maryland, USA
Venue:
Proceedings of the 2013 conference on Computer supported cooperative work
Year:
2013

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Abstract

Many people have pets such as dogs and cats that they would consider to be family. Along with this comes a need to stay aware of one's pet and, possibly, interact with it when away from home. There has even been a recent push by companies to create video-mediated communication (VMC) systems to connect pet owners and pets over distance. Yet the problem is that we do not know how such systems should be designed to meet the real needs of pet owners. To investigate this, we conducted a survey with dog and cat owners that explores their needs for remotely monitoring and interacting with their pets. Our results show that many family members would value being able to maintain an awareness of their pets and interact with them over distance using VMC systems. Such systems would be particularly valuable when pet owners are away from home for extended time periods. However, VMC systems for pets must be designed cautiously to avoid issues of owner disembodiment and other ethical challenges.