An experience sampling study into awareness needs of busy families

We report an investigation into the communication needs of working parents pertaining to awareness of each other's whereabouts and activities. Twenty working parents took part in an experience sampling study for a period of one week and in follow up interviews. Analysis of participant responses shows that working parents can benefit from automatically updated information relating to availability of each other through the day, support for micro-coordination especially surrounding dinner time and children's activities and getting reassurance regarding the well being of the family. Analyzing the situational variations of information needs we find that parents seek their partner's communication availability during the day, require information to coordinate evening tasks and are prone to exchange information at home than at work.