Venus and Mars on Canvas: AI-Mediated Collaborative Drawing for Romantic Relationship Insight

Romantic couples often face challenges in navigating complex emotions and relationship dynamics through verbal communication alone, which can limit opportunities for deeper connection and understanding. To address this, we present an AI-mediated collaborative drawing system that enables couples to engage in structured drawing activities while analyzing their interactions. Inspired by interviews with art therapists, our system integrates behavioral data collection, AI-generated questions, and a comprehensive report synthesizing multimodal evidence. We conducted a user study involving 20 couples (N = 40) to evaluate the system’s effectiveness. Our findings demonstrate that the system fosters self-reflection, partner understanding, and relational awareness with high user acceptance. Participants highlighted the value of non-verbal communication as a unique pathway for gaining relational insight and deeper mutual understanding. Our work contributes design implications for AI-mediated relationship tools that position AI as a facilitator, providing accessible and creative avenues for couples to explore relational patterns and strengthen communication.