Trends, challenges and processes in conversational agent design: exploring practitioners’ views through semi-structured interviews

The aim of this study is to explore the challenges and experiences of conversational agent (CA) practitioners in order to highlight their practical needs and bring them into consideration within the scholarly sphere. A range of data scientists, conversational designers, executive managers and researchers shared their opinions and experiences through semi-structured interviews. They were asked about emerging trends, the challenges they face, and the design processes they follow when creating CAs. In terms of trends, findings included mixed feelings regarding no-code solutions and a desire for a separation of roles. The challenges mentioned included a lack of socio-technical tools and conversational archetypes. Finally, practitioners followed different design processes and did not use the design processes described in the academic literature. These findings were analyzed to establish links between practitioners’ insights and discussions in related literature. The goal of this analysis is to highlight research-practice gaps by synthesising five practitioner needs that are not currently being met. By highlighting these research-practice gaps and foregrounding the challenges and experiences of CA practitioners, we can begin to understand the extent to which emerging literature is influencing industrial settings and where more research is needed to better support CA practitioners in their work

The Nature of biodesigned systems: Directions for HCI

The nascent field of biodesign uses the biological affordances of organisms to address some user need. These can range from the development of novel materials, which the designer actively investigates, to applications of synthetic biology or the creation of bio-digital hybrid systems. Within biodesign there is a question for interaction design: what will interactive systems look like in a guided and grown environment, rather than a built environment? In this workshop, we will explore new technologies that rely on symbiotic relationships between the user and organisms that participate in interactive systems. The goal of this workshop is to engage the interaction design community in exploring new aspects of designing for living computational systems

Ghosts in the Smart Home

We are in the midst of a ‘post-anthropocentric’ turn in design, research and technology. The term refers to a renewed interest in a wide range of concepts, theoretical perspectives, and methodologies. Ghosts in the Smart Home is a post-anthropocentric experiment which manifests as a film whose cast of characters are all internet connected ‘smart’ devices. The motivation is to prototype and establish new ways to see, to be, and to know, which respond to the 21st century’s complex socio-technical system

Participatory Design for Whom? Designing Conversational User Interfaces for Sensitive Settings and Vulnerable Populations

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 set tings, 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

Designing with the more-than-human:Temporalities of thinking with care

This one-day workshop brings together HCI researchers, designers, and practitioners to engage with more-than-human temporalities in the context of designing with care. We invite participants to experiment and think with more-than-human time experiences as a starting point to integrate emergent methodologies and practices for more-than-human discourses in design. By using living and once-living media (e.g., fungi, plant and insect specimens, biodesigned artefacts) as starting points for investigating more-than-human temporalities, participants will discuss how a pluralistic temporal approach can offer to the discourse of designing-with nonhuman entities, and how this aligns with emerging HCI research trajectories and concerns

Chatbots as Advisers: the Effects of Response Variability and Reply Suggestion Buttons

As chatbots gain popularity across a variety of applications, from investment to health, they employ an increasing number of features that can influence the perception of the system. Since chatbots often provide advice or guidance, we ask: do these aspects affect the user’s decision to follow their advice? We focus on two chatbot features that can influence user perception: 1) response variability in answers and delays and 2) reply suggestion buttons. We report on a between-subject study where participants made investment decisions on a simulated social trading platform by interacting with a chatbot providing advice. Performance-based study incentives made the consequences of following the advice tangible to participants. We measured how often and to what extent participants followed the chatbot’s advice compared to an alternative source of information. Results indicate that both response variability and reply suggestion buttons significantly increased the inclination to follow the advice of the chatbot

Who are CUIs Really For? Representation and Accessibility in the Conversational User Interface Literature

The theme for CUI 2023 is 'designing for inclusive conversation', but who are CUIs really designed for? The field has its roots in computer science, which has a long acknowledged diversity problem. Inspired by studies mapping out the diversity of the CHI and voice assistant literature, we set out to investigate how these issues have (or have not) shaped the CUI literature. To do this we reviewed the 46 full-length research papers that have been published at CUI since its inception in 2019. After detailing the eight papers that engage with accessibility, social interaction, and performance of gender, we show that 90% of papers published at CUI with user studies recruit participants from Europe and North America (or do not specify). To complement existing work in the community towards diversity we discuss the factors that have contributed to the current status quo, and offer some initial suggestions as to how we as a CUI community can continue to improve. We hope that this will form the beginning of a wider discussion at the conference.Comment: To appear in the Proceedings of the 2023 ACM conference on Conversational User Interfaces (CUI 23

PizzaBlock: Designing Artefacts and Roleplay to Understand Decentralised Identity Management Systems

This pictorial describes in detail the design, and multiple iterations, of PizzaBlock - a role-playing game and design workshop to introduce non-technical participants to decentralised identity management systems. We have so far played this game with six different audiences, with over one hundred participants - iterating the design of the artefacts and gameplay each time. In this pictorial, we reflect on this RtD project to unpack: a) How we designed artefacts and roleplay to explore decentralised technologies and networks; b) How we communicated the key challenges and parameters of a complex system, through the production of a playable, interactive, analogue representation of that technology; c) How we struck a balance between playful tangible gameplay and high-fidelity technical analogy; and d) How approaches like PizzaBlock invite engagement with complex infrastructures and can support more participatory approaches to their design