Should I Stay Or Should I Go: An Interaction Designer's Approach to Breakups

A few years ago during a challenging relationship, one day, when I was looking for how to decide to break up or not, I found a research paper called “Wanting to Stay and Wanting to Go: Unpacking the Content and Structure of Relationship Stay/Leave Decision Processes” by Samantha Joel, Geoff MacDonald, and Elizabeth Page-Gould. In the study, researchers examined the subjective experience of couples when they are trying to decide whether or not to stay in a romantic relationship and found couples consider 27 reasons supporting their decision to stay and 25 to leave. Finding that paper was my eureka moment. Instead of making a decision like an adult about my relationship, I built a website: A quiz based on the research to decide if I should stay in my relationship or leave it.

In this talk, I want to share the story of my relationship and the breakup.