{"id":"851fa3fc-085b-4842-aebf-f4a220238159","arxiv_id":"2505.22428","paper_version":1,"verdict":"CONDITIONAL","confidence":"MODERATE","novelty_score":6.0,"correctness_risk":"medium","formal_verification":"none","parameter_count":0,"one_line_summary":"New parents co-designing technology for closeness want tools that foster interdependence and positive emotions, not only logistics.","lead":"Researchers ran design brainstorming sessions with ten Taiwanese couples who recently had their first child, asking how technology could keep them feeling close while they coordinate parenting. The study suggests parenting apps should support emotional awareness, positive moments, and shared responsibility, not just schedules and tasks.","discovery_kind":"new_application","skeptic_critique":{"model":"deepseek-v4-flash","headline":"The positive-emotion design-space expansion may be an artifact of the design probes: the envisioning task explicitly asks couples to build on app functions that already include a 'done list' and emotion-focused apps, so the paper's central expansion risks reflecting the probes rather than parents'…","rationale":"The reader's weakest assumption is broader: single-session verbal design proposals, no prototype evaluation, and possible self-censorship. My concern is narrower and more specific: the design probes used in the envisioning activity may have induced the very themes that form the central contribution. Both share the worry that the elicited designs may not faithfully reflect durable parental needs, but the probe-artifact issue is more actionable because it can be tested by temporal coding or a probe-free control session. The paper does several things well. The method section is transparent about procedures and positionality, the limitations section is honest about demographic scope and the lack of prototype evaluation, and the authors frame the work as an initial exploration rather than a controlled test. The interdependence theme (Section 5.3.3) is supported by pre-probe interview data about mothers' gatekeeping and fathers' passivity, so that half of the central claim is more robust. However, the positive-emotion theme (Section 5.3.4) overlaps strongly with the probe categories and apps, and the abstract gives it equal weight in the central claim. Because the 'should' in the central claim rests on participants' expressed desires, probe-driven desires cannot carry that weight without evidence of spontaneity. The proposed concrete test would settle the question; if the themes survive a probe-free session, the expansion is on firm ground. Until then, conditional acceptance with a requirement to report temporal origin is appropriate, which is consistent with the reader's conditional verdict.","tokens_in":23069,"tokens_out":7539,"duration_ms":93026,"concrete_test":"Re-code the transcripts to mark, for each design proposal, whether the idea first appeared (a) during the initial semi-structured interview before any probe was mentioned, (b) during the envisioning activity before the relevant app function or scenario card was shown, or (c) only after the relevant probe was presented. If a majority of the positive-emotion proposals (e.g., done list, gratitude nudge, fun invitation) fall into category (c), then the finding is probe-contingent. A complementary check: run one or two co-design sessions with the scenario cards but without the app-function probes, and observe whether the 'done list' and 'positive emotions' themes still emerge spontaneously. This directly tests whether the central design-space expansion depends on the probe set.","verdict_should_be":"UNCHANGED","load_bearing_attack":"Section 4.2.1's envisioning activity introduces the probes before brainstorming: Step 2 presents app function categories that include 'shared to-do list,' 'done list,' 'parents' journal,' and 'parental guidance,' and the apps include Gottman Card Decks and Love Nudge, which are explicitly emotion- and gratitude-oriented. Step 3 then asks: 'How could you use or modify the design features presented... to support you to feel closer in this scenario?' It is therefore unsurprising that Section 5.3.4 reports participants proposing a 'done list' to foster gratitude, prompts to celebrate, and playful date invitations. The paper treats these as 'parents envisioned' and uses them as core evidence for the contribution 'integrating more positive emotions into parenting.' But the prompt and the probe set were designed by the authors and may have primed these exact directions. The initial semi-structured interview (first activity) did cover closeness, but the design proposals are drawn from the post-probe envisioning activity, and the paper does not report any temporal coding separating ideas that emerged before probe exposure from ideas that directly echo the probes. Because the 'positive emotions' theme is the second half of the central claim, this probe contamination is load-bearing: if the theme is largely probe-driven, the claimed expansion of the co-parenting design space is not an independent empirical discovery. The paper's own limitation section acknowledges self-censorship and the exploratory nature, but it does not address the specific risk that the design probes constitute the independent variable.","agreement_with_reader":"partial"},"referee_report":{"model":"deepseek-v4-flash","summary":"This paper reports a qualitative co-design study with ten Taiwanese first-time parent couples. In one Zoom session per couple, the first author interviewed the couple about their current technology use for co-parenting (RQ1) and then ran an envisioning activity in which couples selected a problematic co-parenting scenario, were shown existing app functions (shared calendar, to-do lists, baby trackers, journaling, and emotion-focused couple apps), and brainstormed how such features could be used or modified to support closeness (RQ2). The thematic analysis describes how parental collaboration can both increase distance and foster closeness, how current technologies support information and task coordination and memory sharing but lack emotional awareness, and how participants envisioned information co-editing, satisfactory task sharing, mutual mental-state awareness and proactive support, and positive emotion and fun features. The discussion proposes two design-space expansions: supporting interdependence (parental competence, task takeover, consensus) and integrating positive emotions (validation, gratitude, fun) into co-parenting technology.","tokens_in":23368,"tokens_out":15027,"duration_ms":165051,"significance":"If the central claim holds, the paper makes a useful contribution by shifting family informatics from logistics and coordination toward relational closeness as an explicit design goal. The interdependence expansion is well grounded in participants' own accounts of maternal burden, paternal passivity, and the relational value of feeling supported (Sections 5.1.1, 5.1.2, 5.3.2, 5.3.3), and the paper offers concrete, buildable ideas such as shared knowledge bases, mutual emotion tracking, and task-takeover support. The study's strengths include the couple-as-unit design, collaborative and transparent coding procedures, direct quotes with participant IDs, and an unusually candid limitations section (Section 7) that acknowledges self-censorship, cultural specificity, and the lack of generalization. The self-citation to prior co-parenting work [56] is used as background context rather than as evidence for the conclusions, so I do not see a circularity problem.","major_comments":[{"comment":"The positive-emotion theme, which is half of the central contribution (abstract; §6.1), is vulnerable to probe contamination. In Step 2 of the envisioning activity, the authors introduced app function categories that explicitly include 'done list' and 'parents' journal,' and the example apps include Gottman Card Decks and Love Nudge, which are emotion- and gratitude-oriented. Step 3 then asked participants how they would 'use or modify the design features presented' to feel closer. It is therefore unsurprising that §5.3.4 reports participants proposing a 'done list' to foster gratitude, prompts to celebrate, and playful date invitations. The paper does not report any temporal or source coding that distinguishes ideas voiced before probe exposure from ideas that directly echo the probe set; notably, the P5M quote used to motivate the 'done list' in §5.3.4 is nearly identical to a quote already presented as current-practice evidence in §5.2.3, so its placement as an envisioned design is ambiguous. Some independent grounding exists in participants' current emotional use of baby and photo apps (§5.2.3), but the design-space expansion in the abstract and §6.1 goes beyond that. To make the contribution load-bearing, the authors should re-analyze the transcripts to report whether positive-emotion design ideas emerged before or independently of the probe set, or explicitly reframe the contribution as design possibilities elicited under these probe conditions and temper the 'we expand' wording accordingly.","section":"§6.2, §5.3.2"}],"minor_comments":[{"comment":"The statement that 'companies are legally bound to offer two-year paternity leave for new fathers' is imprecise: Taiwan's two-year unpaid parental leave is available to either parent, not as a paternity-specific entitlement. Please correct or qualify this sentence.","section":"§3"},{"comment":"The coding description says that after the initial transcript, three researchers independently read and coded two transcripts each, which accounts for only six of the nine remaining transcripts; please clarify how the remaining transcripts were coded and how codebook consistency was ensured across all ten sessions.","section":"§4.3"},{"comment":"The design probes were shown as English screenshots and explained in Mandarin; a sentence on how this language mix may have affected comprehension or engagement would strengthen the method section.","section":"§4.2.1"},{"comment":"Because the data are verbal design proposals from a single co-design session with no prototype evaluation, the abstract's 'we expand the design space' and similar discussion wording could be read as stronger than the evidence supports; consider consistently using 'propose' or 'identify opportunities for' and relying on the candid limitations already stated in §7.","section":"Abstract, §6.1–§6.2"},{"comment":"The phrase 'expand the design space of technology for closeness to include interdependence' is confusing because interdependence is already part of the paper's definition of closeness in §2.1; consider phrasing such as 'extend prior technology-for-closeness research, which has focused on intimacy and shared experiences, to include interdependence in high-stakes caregiving contexts.'","section":"§2.1, Abstract"},{"comment":"The statement that current technology 'ignore[s] the positive emotions parents experience' is too strong given the current-practice evidence in §5.2.3 (baby photo sharing, breastfeeding-tracker memory, shared pregnancy apps); 'do not adequately support' would be more accurate.","section":"§5.3.4"},{"comment":"The ACM template fields (conference acronym, year, DOI, ACM Reference Format) are still unfilled; update these before publication.","section":"Front matter"}],"recommendation":"major_revision","confidential_remarks":"The main barrier is probe contamination: the positive-emotion contribution is currently not separable from the content of the design probes shown before ideation. If the authors can re-analyze the transcripts to show that positive-emotion themes emerged before probe exposure, or if they explicitly reframe the contribution as probe-conditioned design proposals and soften the abstract, I would be willing to accept a revised version. The P4D counterexample in §5.3.2 also needs to be addressed in the interdependence discussion. The paper otherwise fits the scope of DIS and the empirical work is reported carefully."},"author_rebuttal":null,"desk_editor":{"model":"deepseek-v4-flash","letter":"First, the one thing to know: this is a credible, well-scoped co-design study, and the interdependence contribution is solid; the \"positive emotions\" contribution is plausible but probably inflated by the design probes.\n\nWhat's new: prior HCI work split co-parenting (logistics) and couple intimacy. This paper brings closeness into co-parenting and empirically grounds it in 10 Taiwanese couples' sessions. The method is transparent: semi-structured interview first, then envisioning with scenario cards and app-function probes; four coders, inductive coding, positionality statement, and unusually candid limitations. The interdependence theme is well supported by participants' lived experiences: mothers' burden, fathers' passivity and guilt, information asymmetry, and designs like a shared baby \"manual,\" shared contacts, task-negotiation features, and mutual mental-state tracking. That counts as a real expansion of the design space.\n\nThe soft spot is the second expansion. Step 2 of the envisioning activity explicitly introduces app functions that include \"done list,\" \"parents' journal,\" Gottman Card Decks, and Love Nudge—emotion- and gratitude-oriented tools. Step 3 then asks couples to modify those features to feel closer. So when participants propose a \"done list\" to trigger gratitude or \"date invitations\" for fun, that's partly a response to the prompts. The paper does not code or report ideas that appeared before probe exposure separately from those that echo the probes. That makes the positive-emotion finding weaker as an independent empirical discovery. It is still a reasonable design direction, especially because some participants already used baby apps to record efforts and funny moments (P5M, P1M), but the paper should re-scope the claim from \"parents envisioned\" to \"probe-stimulated design possibilities.\"\n\nOther limitations are minor and acknowledged: ten couples, one culture, mostly medium/high SES, all heterosexual cohabiting, no prototype testing. For an exploratory qualitative contribution that's okay. No circularity problem; the self-cited prior work is background.\n\nWho it's for: HCI researchers in family informatics, couple technologies, and co-design. It deserves a serious referee; I'd give conditional acceptance with a request to add a pre/post probe analysis or soften the positive-emotion claim. I'd cite it in design-space discussions.","headline":"Solid interdependence contribution; the positive-emotion expansion looks partly probe-driven, so read it as design inspiration rather than discovered need.","tokens_in":23876,"tokens_out":2884,"would_cite":true,"duration_ms":36022,"reading_group":"yes","serious_thinker":"yes","would_accept_peer_review":true},"rs_alignment":null,"lean_confirmation":null,"pith_extraction":{"msc":[],"pacs":[],"model":"deepseek-v4-flash","headline":"Co-parenting technology should treat closeness as a design goal, not just logistics.","keywords":["co-parenting","closeness","family informatics","interdependence","positive emotion","co-design","new parents"],"falsifier":"A field experiment with new parent couples comparing a co-parenting app that includes the proposed features, such as shared co-editable baby records, done lists, gratitude prompts, and mood-sharing, against an equivalent app limited to task coordination, measuring closeness with a validated scale over four to eight weeks; if closeness does not differ between conditions, the paper's design-space claim would be contradicted. A quicker check is to ask couples to use a mood-sharing feature and see whether the partner's awareness actually leads to proactive task takeover.","tokens_in":22884,"feed_emoji":"👶","tokens_out":6220,"duration_ms":62017,"temperature":0.7,"pith_summary":"This paper argues that technology designed to help new parents collaborate should treat relational closeness as an explicit design goal, not an afterthought. Based on brainstorming sessions with ten Taiwanese couples whose first child was under four, the authors claim that closeness can be fostered through two mechanisms: fostering interdependence, by helping each parent become competent and able to take over tasks proactively, and integrating positive emotions, such as validation, gratitude, and fun, into parenting tasks. The study matters because the transition to parenthood is a documented strain on couple closeness, and current co-parenting apps concentrate on logistics like calendars and tracking. If the claim holds, designers of family technology would have a concrete, evidence-grounded direction: build for mutual reliance and shared positive experience, not only efficiency.","feed_headline":"Co-parenting apps should build closeness, not just task lists","feed_subtitle":"Ten new-parent couples envision tech that boosts interdependence and adds gratitude and fun to care tasks.","key_machinery":"The carrying mechanism is a co-design envisioning procedure in which each couple works as a single unit. Couples were presented with nine problematic co-parenting situations and a set of functions from existing parenting, couple, and pregnancy apps, then asked to brainstorm and discuss technological solutions with prompts about closeness; their verbal proposals were transcribed and inductively coded into themes. The method matters because it elicits joint, negotiated design ideas from both parents rather than from one parent alone, and it grounds the design-space claims in what couples themselves say would make them feel closer.","core_discovery":"The central claim is that the design space of closeness in co-parenting technology should expand in two directions. First, closeness should be pursued through interdependence, which the paper defines as the extent to which partners rely on each other; concretely, participants wanted technologies that build each parent's competence, keep both parents on the same page about baby information, and support the less-active parent in proactively taking over tasks. Second, closeness should be pursued by weaving positive emotions into parenting tasks, for example through done lists that make each partner's contributions visible, nudges to express gratitude and validation, and playful invitations to shared time. The evidence comes from what couples envisioned when prompted with realistic problem scenarios and existing app functions: they repeatedly asked for shared co-editing of baby records, awareness of each other's mental state, and ways to turn completed care work into shared celebration.","pith_inferences":["A natural extension the paper leaves implicit is a prototype evaluation: the proposed features could be bundled into an app and tested with new parents over several weeks to see whether interdependence features and positive-emotion features each move closeness measures independently.","The design recommendations are likely culturally shaped: in a context where fathers take more parental leave, the catch-up competence framing for the less-active parent might shift toward symmetric redistribution of tasks, and testing the same probes with same-sex couples or parents who live apart would reveal which parts of the design space generalize.","The paper's method suggests a testable boundary: if couples' closeness rises mainly from jointly negotiated features rather than from the features themselves, then co-designing the task list together may matter as much as the app's content."],"forward_implications":["Co-parenting apps should offer shared, co-editable baby information and task records so both parents can stay on the same page without one parent acting as information gatekeeper.","Designs should make each parent's parenting competence and contributions visible, for example with a done list, so the less-active parent can learn and take over tasks proactively.","Designs should support mutual awareness of mental state, including mood, sleep, and stress, so that a partner can respond with empathy and support rather than react only after conflict.","Designs should include positive-emotion features such as gratitude nudges, achievements, celebration prompts, and playful date invitations, treating parenting tasks as shared life experience rather than pure logistics.","Because closeness and supportive co-parenting are associated with each other, technology that increases closeness may also improve collaboration itself, creating a reinforcing cycle."],"supporting_citations":[{"why":"Grounds the paper's definition of closeness as shared experiences, interdependence, and intimacy.","marker":"[7]"},{"why":"Supplies the definition of interdependence as the extent to which partners rely on each other.","marker":"[73]"},{"why":"Provides the intimacy model in which self-disclosure plus a partner's responsive, validating reaction builds closeness.","marker":"[70]"},{"why":"Supports the motivation for the study: couple closeness and coparenting support are associated across days.","marker":"[54]"},{"why":"Documents how new mothers use apps and collaborate with childcare support, the backdrop for recruiting couples and using app functions as probes.","marker":"[50]"},{"why":"Prior work co-designing self-trackers for parenting stress, showing how tracking efforts can trigger appreciation and informing the positive-emotion designs.","marker":"[46]"},{"why":"Represents the logistics-focused coordination research that the paper positions itself against.","marker":"[19]"},{"why":"Prior design for emotional support between working and stay-at-home parents, extended by the paper's mutual mood-awareness proposals.","marker":"[83]"}],"fun_headline_variants":["Co-parenting apps should foster closeness, not just task sharing","New couples envision tech that builds co-parenting closeness via interdependence","Expand co-parenting tech to include positive emotions and shared celebration","Designing for co-parent closeness: from task lists to gratitude and fun"],"cache_read_input_tokens":3200,"weakest_assumption_plain":"The load-bearing premise is that what ten married, middle-to-high-income, cohabiting Taiwanese couples verbally proposed during one one-to-one-and-a-half-hour video session, prompted by scenario cards and app screenshots, is a faithful and sufficient basis for claims about what co-parenting technology should support; no prototype was built or tested, and partners may have censored themselves in front of each other.","fun_headline_variants_meta":{"raw":{"variants":["Co-parenting apps should foster closeness, not just task sharing","New couples envision tech that builds co-parenting closeness via interdependence","Expand co-parenting tech to include positive emotions and shared celebration","Designing for co-parent closeness: from task lists to gratitude and fun"]},"model":"deepseek-v4-flash","effort":"low","cost_usd":0.000492,"raw_usage":{"total_tokens":2379,"prompt_tokens":865,"completion_tokens":1514,"prompt_tokens_details":{"cached_tokens":384},"prompt_cache_hit_tokens":384,"prompt_cache_miss_tokens":481,"completion_tokens_details":{"reasoning_tokens":1441}},"tokens_in":481,"tokens_out":1514,"duration_ms":13474,"temperature":1.0,"reasoning_tokens":1441,"cache_read_input_tokens":384,"cache_creation_input_tokens":0},"cache_creation_input_tokens":0},"created_at":"2026-08-07T13:07:00.499433+00:00","model_set":{"reader":"deepseek-v4-flash"},"falsifier":"A field experiment with new parent couples comparing a co-parenting app that includes the proposed features, such as shared co-editable baby records, done lists, gratitude prompts, and mood-sharing, against an equivalent app limited to task coordination, measuring closeness with a validated scale over four to eight weeks; if closeness does not differ between conditions, the paper's design-space claim would be contradicted. A quicker check is to ask couples to use a mood-sharing feature and see whether the partner's awareness actually leads to proactive task takeover.","supporting_citations":[{"cited_title":null,"cited_arxiv_id":null,"evidence_quote":"Supplies the definition of interdependence as the extent to which partners rely on each other."},{"cited_title":null,"cited_arxiv_id":null,"evidence_quote":"Provides the intimacy model in which self-disclosure plus a partner's responsive, validating reaction builds closeness."},{"cited_title":null,"cited_arxiv_id":null,"evidence_quote":"Supports the motivation for the study: couple closeness and coparenting support are associated across days."},{"cited_title":null,"cited_arxiv_id":null,"evidence_quote":"Documents how new mothers use apps and collaborate with childcare support, the backdrop for recruiting couples and using app functions as probes."},{"cited_title":null,"cited_arxiv_id":null,"evidence_quote":"Prior work co-designing self-trackers for parenting stress, showing how tracking efforts can trigger appreciation and informing the positive-emotion designs."},{"cited_title":null,"cited_arxiv_id":null,"evidence_quote":"Prior design for emotional support between working and stay-at-home parents, extended by the paper's mutual mood-awareness proposals."}],"review_version":1}