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Designing for beyond Touch and Hegemony
Aligning with the current HCI research space which advocates and studies designing for DEIJ (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice) perspectives, in this design project, engage in the broad question: How can we make conversational UIs (CUI) by, for, and about DEIJ?
Regarding the DEIJ values in CUI, elderlies have long been excluded from technologies. This has left them in the dark and frustrated with technology in general.
By providing principles to designers, we hope to provoke them to consider some key elements to be implemented in a CUI. If we do not act immediately, this gap is only going to widen as technology becomes an increasingly prominent part of our lives.
To illustrate the problem space to audience about the issue that we are trying to solve
We began to question- WHY IS IT HARD FOR THE ELDERLY TO GRASP TECHNOLOGY
Please click through the images to go through the storyboard
To clearly communicate our vision, we framed our vision in the should do, can do, can know, and forms format.
Improve Elderly's experience with technologies, Address the problem of inclusivity, Educate the elderly, Inspire the designers
Scaffold the elderly, Motivate designers, Promote awareness around Inclusivity and other DEIJ aspects, Address issues for other minorities.
Assess if the elderly have a "easier" conversation with CUI's.
Physical Cards
To make it easier for us to plan our timeline and work efficiently, We decided to follow the The PRInCiPleS Framework for Design Plans & Explanations.
1. Predispositions
2. Research
3. Insights
4. Concepts
5. Prototypes
The team and I came up with a bunch of predispositions that exists around the Conversational UI (CUI) space.
We ended up choosing our problem space around
Predisposition 6: Older and younger audiences are more likely to have a conversation
Conversational UI manipulates users’ decisions
Humans can control their decisions with the help of Conversational UI
Users don’t trust the chatbot interface
Virtual assistants are making our sentences shorter and changing our accents
The AI in Conversational UI is biased
Older and younger audiences are more likely to have a conversation with CUIs
The purpose of a literature review is to become familiar with and understand existing research in a particular field before conducting a new investigation. It helped us discover what research has already been done and identify what remains unexplored.
We got concrete proof about the fact that- The elderly are intentionally disregarded by technological industries. This has left them frustrated and unable to grasp technology.
"When it comes to technology, older adults are often stereotypically described as a homogeneous group that are lagging behind and associated with cognitive decline, frailty and needs. These stereotypes often affect designers in the design process of Digital Technology"
When it comes to designing and researching digital technology, it ought to be a designer’s goal to include older adults rather than exclude them, if we are to ensure that it can improve well-being.
"If inclusion in current society means active participation in the digital world, then older adults who are not online or otherwise active on the internet risk being socially excluded"
The elderly, especially those in long-term care facilities, who are frail and not online, suffer from a double burden of social and digital exclusion.
Using semantic differentials, we were able to assess the "felt" experiences of the elderly around technology that are directly influenced by experiences, cultural background, and beliefs.
It provided us insight into how existing Conversational UIs stack up with respect to Diversity, Equity, Inclusivity, Justice, Privacy, and Accessibility
Helps put structure and gives a basic understanding of what the intended outcome is supposed to be.
It aided us to get a better understanding of the qualities and behaviours that an ideal CUI should possess in order to solve 3 main issues of the elderly-
1. Boredom
2. Novelty
3. Loneliness
Boredom
Novelty
Loneliness
Please click through the images to go through the concepts
Keeping all the attributes and pain points in mind, we came up with 6 design principles that we thought designers should consider while coming up with CUIs for the elderly.
Familiarity
Care
Privacy
Responsive
Adaptability
Boundaries
Creating a language which is familiar to the elderly in terms of context and culture.
Consideration should be given to the Physical and Mental well being of the elderly
CUI should be respectful to elderly's self-determination and personal data.
CUI should be proactive in responding to the elderly, clarify and validate the given data
CUI should provide assistance as a need rather than a feature
The elderly should be able to set ground rules of levels of control that the assistant should follow
We conducted 2 usability tests with our proposed design principles.
We asked the elderly for feedback about our initial principles in a conversation and at the same time used the Tarot cards of tech to validate and verify our principles.
We conducted a usability test with 6 elderly participants. We asked them to indicate their level of comfort on a Likert scale between a conversation with the existing CUI and a CUI conversation with our principles applied.
We conducted a usability test with 6 elderly participants. We asked them to indicate their level of comfort on a Likert scale between a conversation with the existing CUI and a CUI conversation with our principles applied.
We asked them to compare the below two conversations and asked them their opinion
Ratings received for the "Before" conversation
Ratings received for the "After" conversation
Our team conducting a Usability test with a participant
Chose the Tarot cards of Tech of Usability test in order to figure out what kind of questions we were not asking ourselves.
We realized the gaps and shortcomings of our initial principles. We realized that not a lot of consideration was given to geriatrics and infirm elderlies.
What could cause people to lose trust in your product?
1. Intrusive
2. Misunderstanding
3. Confusion
How might cultural habits change how your
product is used? And how might your product change cultural habits?
1. Incentive to Use
technology More
2. Ubiquitous
How would your product
change to better serve the underserved population?
1. Enrichment
2. Bridge the Digital Gap
Whose perspective is missing
from product development?
1.Hearing-Speech Impaired
2. Cognitively declined
How would a community of your most passionate users behave?
1. Inspire the Designers
2. Spread The Word
What happens when
100 million people use
your product?
1. Reduce Ageism in
Industry
2. Assessment of DEIJ values in CUI
We went back to the drawing board and iterated on our concepts and came up with the following principles-
Familiarity
Nurture
Tranquility
Boundaries
Proactivity
Adaptability
Please hover over the card to flip it
Familiarity
Nurture
Tranquility
Boundaries
Proactivity
Adaptibility
All these principles work in coordination with each other.
With every conversation held, every action acted, these principles would learn and inform each other to better the existing experience for the elderly.
Ideal position for designers
Chose to come up with a scenario description swimlane in order to clearly illustrate to the audience how our principle can be used in a conversation with CUI. It is important to notice that the several principles can be applied to a single scenario.
Scenario Description Swim lanes for an Elderly adding to a grocery list
Find more elderly participants to understand their needs in more aspects
Test our design framework in real-life’s situation
Get feedback from Ethical Designers.
Test our frameworks to see whether they can be applied to other excluded groups
This project has a special place in my heart since I got to empathize with a target group that I genuinely care about. We got to address a problem space that most of us have faced, either with our own parents or our grandparents.
Special thanks to Prof. Maryam Heidaripour for guiding us in the right path when we were unsure about what needed to be done and Prof. Chivukula Sai Shruthi for being a pragmatic stakeholder and pointing out use cases we hadn't thought of beforehand.
A huge shout out to Julie, Nishad, and Zhixian, the dream team that I worked with on this project. Their point of views and their creative methodologies really inspired me throughout the term of the project.
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