Houben, M., van As, N., Sawhney, N., Unbehaun, D., and Lee, M. 2023. Participatory Design for Whom? Designing Conversational User Interfaces for Sensitive Settings and Vulnerable Populations. In Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Conversational User Interfaces (CUI ‘23). ACM, NY.
Abstract
Conversational User Interfaces (CUIs) are becoming increasingly applied in a broad range of sensitive settings to address the needs and struggles of vulnerable or marginalized users. Sensitive settings include, for instance, CUIs mediating the communication difficulties of people with dementia or supporting refugees to cope with new cultural practices as a chatbot on a government website. While researchers are increasingly designing CUIs for such sensitive settings, methods and participatory design approaches to address vulnerable user groups’ highly sensitive needs and struggles are sparse in research thus far. This workshop aims to explore how we can design CUIs for and in sensitive settings with vulnerable users in mind through the participatory design process. We aim to establish a working definition of vulnerability, sensitive settings, and how practice-oriented design of CUIs can be inclusive of diverse users.
More information
Conversational User Interfaces (CUIS) are like talking computer programs that are used in places where people might need extra help, like those who have troubleding things (like people with dementia) or refugees or are learning new ways of doing things in new country. Even more thought and more researchers are making these interactive computer programs for these situations, there aren’t many ways to make them sure really work for the people who need them the most.
In this workshop paper, Nitin Sawhney from Trust M with his colleagues talks about figuring out how to make these talking computer programs better for people in these tough situations. The paper is available here.