Couple Cards

Prompt

A typical romantic relationship involves two people with distinct personalities and identities. The combination of these elements develop in a sort of, relationship chemistry, and create a new, unique bond. Developing the couple’s identity and building a relationship can be challenging, frustrating, but rewarding all at the same time. People may share similar feelings and interests with their partners, but they continue to find that conflict is unavoidable as a natural part of being individuals with individual needs.

Inspired by the dynamics of relationships, the team and I were motivated in utilizing design and persuasive techniques to encourage healthier behavior in couples and strengthen romantic relationships.

A game that facilitates closeness between couples

Couple Cards is a whimsical card game for couples aimed at bringing individuals closer to their romantic partners. The objective is for the couple to work cooperatively to win (or lose) against other couples by accomplishing four challenges before the other couples do.

In this game, we had embedded the persuasive techniques:

• embodied cognition - the theory indicating that thoughts, feelings, actions, and behaviors are grounded in physical experiences

• priming - activating one’s thoughts or feelings about a particular subject

This 45-minute game has couples engage in Holding, Hugging, Sharing, and Talking. These tasks require couples to interact physically, use their shared jargon/language, and reminiscence through their personal experiences.

Research & development

Four weeks were dedicated to literature review and expert interviews with couples therapists to understand the landscape and methods to assuage, navigate, and prevent unhealthy conflict in couples. We created a territory map, identifying everything and anything involved with couples conflict and management

Dr. John Gottman’s Sound Relationship House Theory suggests that there are nine components that build a healthy relationship. Each of these components builds on top of one another and suggests that with a strong foundation, couples can more successfully navigate differences and conflicts in their relationship.

Fail fast and pivot

With our research, we aimed to develop a persuasive intervention that encouraged closeness and intimacy between partners in a relationship. Utilizing Gottman’s Sound Relationship House Theory, we focused on the components of building love maps (knowing your partner’s inner psychological world, history, joys, and hopes) and sharing fondness and admiration (an antidote for contempt and focuses on affection and respect).

We conducted competitive research looking at existing products in the couples-space and produced ideas around gentle reminders, sharing affection, and emotional awareness. With this in mind, we rapidly ideated and iterated on different potential digital interventions.

These ideas were then tested via speed-dating; sharing concept storyboards for high-level feedback with five participants in relationships. We discovered that many of these ideas were invasive, unwanted, and unnecessary. 

We recognized an opportunity to change direction and took a different approach to the problem. Where digital solutions may fail, an entirely different medium may succeed. At this point, we pivoted to creating a physical game.

Playtesting & iteration

Before we got to our final design, we had to get through some bad game ideas until we envisioned what became Couple cards.

Through playtests with real couples (newly dating, engaged, and married), the team was able to observe gameplay and make revisions to the game rules and mechanics including:

• Identifying and simplifying the most enjoyable tasks

• Adding a game board to track progress

We also solicited feedback from our playtesters, receiving positive, inspiring, and even skeptical critique that helped us further develop the game.

We’re proud of the intervention we have created and even more excited about the future Couple Cards may see. The team explored a vast problem space, but we hope that this mirthful game can be a small solution.