Abstract
Hybrid gifting combines physical artefacts and experiences with digital interactivity to generate new kinds of gifts. Our review details how gifting is a complex social phenomenon and how digital gifting is less engaging than physical gifting for both givers and receivers. Employing a Research Through Design approach, we developed a portfolio of four hybrid gifting experiences: an augmented advent calendar; edible music tracks; personalized museum tours; and a narrated city walk. Our reflection addresses three concepts: hybrid wrapping where physical gifts become wrapped in digital media and vice versa; the importance of effortful interactions that are visible and pleasurable; and the need to consider social obligation, including opportunities for acknowledgement and reciprocation, dealing with embarrassment, and recognizing the distinction between giving and sharing. Our concepts provide guidance to practitioners who wish to design future gifting experiences while helping HCI researchers engage with the concept of gifting in a nuanced way.
Highlights
Gifting is an ancient, familiar and important social activity for very many people
Our portfolio emerged from several years of research in which we explored the design of hybrid gifting in different contexts and under the aegis of different funded projects, and comprises four examples: an augmented advent calendar, edible music tracks, personalised museum tours and musical city walks
We suggest that hybrid wrapping can take different routes depending on how it is associated with the gift item and especially what happens to it following unwrapping. (a) Some wrappings will remain as a memento right after being unwrapped without being practically used
Summary
Familiar and important social activity for very many people. Gifts are routinely exchanged on birthdays, at births, weddings, anniversaries, as part of religious festivals, or as personal acts of friendship, romance and gratitude. As with many walks of life, digital technologies have become bound up with gifting, both in terms of the kinds of gifts that are given which may take on digital forms such as music tracks, playlists or digital subscriptions, to enabling new ways of buying exchanging gifts via the Internet, including the routine inclusion of gifting options within online stores This has fuelled a growing interest in gifting within HCI, including using gifting as a lens to help explain the sharing of personal messages and digital media as well as exploring the design of new digital gifts and gifting services. Our intention is to expand the repertoire of techniques available to the designers of a wide range of everyday gifting experiences, from the gifting of subscriptions and playlists on digital streaming services, to enriching the gifting options currently offered by online stores, to being able to wrap traditional physical items with personal messages that leave behind valuable memories on social media. We consider previous discussions of hybridity within HCI that inform our ideas of hybrid gifting and wrapping
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