Elisha Jeon — Interaction Designer

A short reflection

The biggest aspect I’d want to showcase from this project is a comprehensive design research process that emphasizes the speculativeness and the incomplete nature of it. I hope to embrace the explorative spirit of always seeking new information and insights, to either disprove our previous assumptions or to show how we might have pivoted based on unexpected findings. This iterative nature is what I’d like to place forward most, and to underline my ability to: 1) conduct thorough research or complete a process stage, 2) take a step back to reflect and synthesize, and 3) reassess our understanding to connect nuanced details with the broader picture.

Additionally, I aim to make this case study storytelly / in a way to guide viewers in our process in discovering our insights. I hope to be able to do this with guided storytelling and better visuals and (which I'll add more of soon). Mostly, I think it'll be important to not only walk through the process, but give the rationale behind each subsequent step. Overall, by presenting the research as an iterative and deeply human-centered process, I aim show not only the outcomes but also the thoughtful and reflective methodology that guided this project.

A Design Research Case Study

Intergenerational Caregiving in Immigrant Asian-American Families

Overview

An 11-week design research study exploring how intergenerational values shape parent-child relationships of Asian-American Immigrant families. It involves secondary and primary research, synthesis, ideation, and feedback. My personal goal with this study was to be explore ambiguous spaces with speculative thinking to uncover meaningful insights.

User Research

Role

Design Researcher

Timeframe

September – December 2024

11 weeks

Instructed by

Audrey Desjardins

Team

Alicia Beatty
Chloe Chen

Elisha Jeon

BACKGROUND

“In East Asia, where Confucian values have been deeply institutionalized in the culture, filial piety (xiao) remains the core value prescribing how children should demonstrate reciprocal care to their parents...”

RESEARCH QUESTION

How do Confucian ideals of filial piety influence modern expectations of caregiving in Asian-American immigrant families, especially when balancing traditional values with new cultural influences and independency?

Language brokering can be both stressful and beneficial.

Cultural dissimilarities weaken parent-child bonds.

Previous perceptions of immigrant hardships can become positive.

SECONDARY RESEARCH FINDINGS

With our research question, our team read through 29 articles related to the caregiving dynamics between children and parents. We noticed a research gap related to the perspective of the parents throughout the articles

PRIMARY RESEARCH FINDINGS

After understanding the established insights and studies that exist in the space, we moved onto getting our own insights and guiding the research under the light we wanted to find.

Semi-Structured Interviews

One-on-one interviews with parents and their children to gather qualitative data on their relationship and the influence of technology, language brokering, and cultural dynamics.

Diary Studies

Participants maintain a journal documenting their day-to-day experiences with their child/parent. Aims to uncover invisible insights that are within ongoing interactions, emot-ions, and decisions that occur within the family context.

Photo Studies

Explore the significance of personal items within immigrant households by having participants capture belongings that facilitate care between their child/parent.

PARTICIPANTS

Through a short screening survey allocated by flyers and personal connections, we recruited nine of our participants.

Parent Demographic

— Ages 52 – 55

— Range of one to four children

— Beginner to Intermediate at English

— East Asian

Children Demographic

— Ages 20 – 22

— Range of only child to three siblings

— Fluent in English

— East or South Asian

INSIGHTS

After concluding our primary research, we identified seven insights from what our participants shared about their caregiving dynamic.

Tough love, or lack of affirmation, demotivates and causes rifts in the parent-child relationship because it overlooks the emotional needs of the child.

Balancing familial expectations with personal boundaries is imperative for parent-child relationships because it maintains autonomy while also leaving room for connection.

Intimacy is challenging for immigrant parents and their children because lack of cultural relatability hinders the ability to understand each other’s values and perspectives.

Parents and children like to engage in mundane non-confrontational conversations digitally because it updates each other when they are apart, preserving family bonding.

Being trusted and relied on is important for both parents and children because it instills a sense of empowerment and relieves guilt of being too reliant.

Mediation and dealing with parental expectations can be emotionally draining for children because it involves translation, cultural explanations, research, and time coordination, causing frustration in their relationship.

In-person interactions are preferred because gestures can fill in the gaps of language and cultural barriers, allowing for deeper emotional conversations.

DESIGN PRINCIPLES

From our learnings of our insights, we came up with four design principles that could align with the values of the parent and children, and guide us in our ideation.

01 Fostering emotional intimacy

Prompting parents to initiate emotional support. Express care through a non-confrontational medium when they are apart. Enables interactive and focused conversations across distances.

02. Creating empowering spaces for support

Making a safe space for parents and children who feel guilty to give back in empowering ways.

03. Promoting positive mediation and trust

Perceive the mediation process not as a frustrating experience, but a positive exercise of trust and responsibility. Enables interactive and focused conversations across distances.

04. Balancing autonomy and connection

Finding the sweet spot to set up the boundary between dependency and independency. Find a love “language” that relates to both child and parent. Express care through a non-confrontational medium when they are apart.

SKETCHES

As a team, we sketched 15 different ideas that addressed the insights we identified. From there, we down-selected with the criteria of creating a good mix of ideas that addressed all of our insights, while also focusing on the main problems — mediation, language and cultural barriers, and autonomy.

FEEDBACK HIGHLIGHTS

Sharing these sketches with five of our returning participants, we received a lot of feedback on the usability of the ideas. There were three main feedback themes:

03 Parents and children need motivation to use a product
Parents and children need motivation to use a product
Some ideas presented complex technology or an extra step in their interactions that could be rethought with better motivations and use cases for both parties.
02 Ineffectively addresses the root of the problem
Many participants felt that while the ideas were useful, it overlooked addressing the harder parts of emotionally scaffolding spaces for these ideas to take place.
01 Someone’s favorite idea is not their child/parent’s favorite.
While a child found value in one idea, parents felt it fell short — and vice versa, highlighting the need for balanced benefits and considerations for both parties.
03 Parents and children need motivation to use a product
Parents and children need motivation to use a product
Some ideas presented complex technology or an extra step in their interactions that could be rethought with better motivations and use cases for both parties.
02 Ineffectively addresses the root of the problem
Many participants felt that while the ideas were useful, it overlooked addressing the harder parts of emotionally scaffolding spaces for these ideas to take place.
01 Someone’s favorite idea is not their child/parent’s favorite.
While a child found value in one idea, parents felt it fell short — and vice versa, highlighting the need for balanced benefits and considerations for both parties.
03 Parents and children need motivation to use a product
Parents and children need motivation to use a product
Some ideas presented complex technology or an extra step in their interactions that could be rethought with better motivations and use cases for both parties.
02 Ineffectively addresses the root of the problem
Many participants felt that while the ideas were useful, it overlooked addressing the harder parts of emotionally scaffolding spaces for these ideas to take place.
01 Someone’s favorite idea is not their child/parent’s favorite.
While a child found value in one idea, parents felt it fell short — and vice versa, highlighting the need for balanced benefits and considerations for both parties.
03 Parents and children need motivation to use a product
Parents and children need motivation to use a product
Some ideas presented complex technology or an extra step in their interactions that could be rethought with better motivations and use cases for both parties.
02 Ineffectively addresses the root of the problem
Many participants felt that while the ideas were useful, it overlooked addressing the harder parts of emotionally scaffolding spaces for these ideas to take place.
01 Someone’s favorite idea is not their child/parent’s favorite.
While a child found value in one idea, parents felt it fell short — and vice versa, highlighting the need for balanced benefits and considerations for both parties.

CONCLUSION

Our Reflection

As a team we gained a deeper understanding of the experiences and pain points of those who exercise filial piety towards their parents and the parents that care for and receive this piety.

We hope to use these insights for our own parental relationships and hope that this booklet may be useful for those that wish to ameliorate and understand their own caregiving dynamic.

Next Steps

Reiterating on our ideas to bring balanced benefits to both parent and child — such as bringing autonomy while maintaining connection and reinforcing their care relationship. Conducting further research to get at the core of these caregiving tensions to reframe our ideas and effectively address them.

Thank you!

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