Title
Re/framing virtual conversational partners: A feminist critique and tentative move towards a new design paradigm
Abstract
A major research agenda in HCI is the development of believable agents. Because believability has become linked to gendered personification, designers have relied on stereotypes for both the physical rendering and verbal responses of these agents. Conversational agents are even scripted to handle “abuse” in stereotypical ways. Such scripting, however, often escalates the abuse. While the demand for anthropomorphized agents may necessitate a reliance on bodily stereotypes, the verbal responses of the agents need not be scripted according to gendered expectations. We explore the design of conversational agents as a rhetorical enterprise that can deconstruct overtly gendered patterns of interaction.
Department(s)
Information Technology and Cybersecurity
English
Document Type
Conference Proceeding
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20898-5_17
Keywords
Agent abuse, Anthropomorphism, Embodied conversational agents, Ethos, Feminist HCI, Interface, Personified, Rhetoric
Publication Date
1-1-2015
Recommended Citation
Brahnam, Sheryl, and Margaret Weaver. "Re/framing virtual conversational partners: A feminist critique and tentative move towards a new design paradigm." In International Conference of Design, User Experience, and Usability, pp. 172-183. Springer, Cham, 2015.
Journal Title
Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
