Accepted Papers

• Chen Ji, Lawrence Kim:, Amori Mikami, Elizabeth Reid, Raquel Robinson, Rebecca Todd, Vasileia Karasavva, Karon Maclean, Katherine Isbister. Sharing Feelings via Mini Robot Gestures [Abstract][Video]

  Sharing feelings is essential to empathic communication. This demo allows participants to send and receive emotional signals using a pair of small robots. The robots’ gestures take advantage of the mobility and embodied qualities of robots, and explore a new modality of social signaling that could enhance what is possible through purely digital interfaces. This prototype is part of a larger inquiry into the expressive capabilities of distributed bot systems for empathic communication and connection. Participants will be able to engage in a robot-based emotional exchange using a mobile-device-based interface that offers 6 pre-set robot gestures.

• Verena Distler, Yasmeen Abdrabou, Felix Dietz, Florian Alt. Triggering Empathy out of Malicious Intent: The Role of Empathy in Social Engineering Attacks [Abstract][Video]

  Social engineering is a popular attack vector among cyber criminals. During such attacks, impostors often attempt to trigger empathy to manipulate victims into taking dangerous actions, for example, sharing their credentials or clicking on malicious email attachments. The objective of this position paper is to initiate a conversation on the tension between positive and negative aspects of empathy in HCI as it pertains to security-relevant behaviors. To this end, we focus on the malicious ways in which empathy can be instrumentalized in social engineering. We describe examples of such empathy-related social engineering attacks, explore potential solutions (including the automated detection of empathy-triggering communication, or of empathetic communication on the part of a potential victim), and discuss technical, social as well as organizational interventions. We highlight research challenges and directions for future work.

• Ji-Youn Jung, Alessandro Bozzon. Are Female Chatbots More Empathic? - Discussing Gendered Conversational Agent through Empathic Design [Abstract][Video]

  Studies have shown that feminine chatbots are perceived as warmer (e.g., likable, friendly) and imbue more humanness to a machine than male androgynous chatbots. As chatbots are being widely deployed in various empathic contexts (e.g., revealing sensitive personal information or facilitating charity donations), how to design the gender of chatbots remains a critical question in the empathic design community. Should designers assign feminine identities to chatbots to improve empathic reactions? In this position paper, we explore the tension between designing empathic agents and the gender assignment of chatbots and how they can relate to the design of the metaphor of the chatbots. After analyzing the problem, we discuss the possible design strategy and their trade-offs. We conclude with possible future work directions that could inform CA gender design that elicits user empathy.

• Ruosi Shao. An Empathetic AI for Mental Health Intervention: Conceptualizing and Examining Artificial Empathy [Abstract][Video]

  The ability to express empathy is recognized as the key for non-human agents to provide effective support and companionship. However, the conceptualization of empathy goes against the non-human nature and grounds on unique human experiences. Therefore, the question remains: should non-human agents express empathy, and if so, how? In the lab experiment, participants (N=123) engaged in a zoom-based counseling process with an AI-driven or a human-operated counselor, who expressed high or low empathy during the empathetic counseling to address individuals' stressors. Results suggest that empathetic counseling increased the counseling quality only when coming from a human-operated counselor. AI-provided empathetic counseling backfired and was rated as less helpful. However, two aspects of empathetic support were appreciated when coming from AI, including offering attentive comments and providing hope. This study further concludes that it is necessary to reconsider non-human nature and conceptualize artificial empathy accordingly in designing social agents for mental health intervention.

• Teale Masrani, Helen Ai He, Geoffrey Messier. The Human Behind the Data: Reflections from an Ongoing Co-Design and Deployment of a Data-Navigation Interface for Front-Line Emergency Housing Shelter Staff [Abstract][Video]

  At least 35,000 individuals experience homelessness on any given night in Canada. These individuals use emergency shelters to transition out of homelessness and into permanent housing. We designed and deployed a technology to support front-line staff at the largest emergency housing shelter in Calgary, Canada, as they engage with data to empathize with client circumstances and make difficult decisions about how to best serve their clients. Over a three month period in 2022, we worked closely with front-line staff to co-design an interface to facilitate decision-making, and support a holistic understand of client context. The tool is currently in use and our collaboration is ongoing. In this paper, we reflect on preliminary findings regarding the second iteration of this tool as it facilitates empathetic decision-making in high-stakes contexts. We find that supporting shelter staff in understanding the human behind the data was a critical component of design. This work contributes to literature on how data tools may be integrated into the homelessness sector in such a way that aligns with shelters' values.

• Alok Debnath, Owen Conlan. A Critical Analysis of EmpatheticDialogues as a Corpus for Empathetic Engagement [Abstract][Video]

  This paper aims to analyze the content and relevance of one of the most popular contemporary training corpora for empathetic conversational agents: EmpatheticDialogues. We provide a detailed qualitative breakdown of the corpus including the corpus creation methodology and point out some critical shortcomings of the corpus. Given the significance of the corpus as the only one of its kind at the moment, we also provide a quantitative comparison of EmpatheticDialogues to other contemporary small-talk corpora including DailyDialog and Persona-Chat, including conversation length, the ratio of conversant interaction, lexical choice, etc. With this analysis, we discuss the merit and implications of indicating a specific small-talk dialogue corpus is more empathetic than other small-talk corpora. Finally, we provide a new lens for developing conversational agents with empathetic engagement capabilities by augmenting existing dialogue datasets.

• Shruti Rao, Hamed Alavi, Judith Good. Towards Empathic Buildings: Exploring How Smart Buildings May Be Designed to Address Occupants’ Subjective Needs [Abstract][Video]

  Given that people spend a significant amount of time within buildings, designing spaces while taking into consideration the impact that they may have on occupants’ well-being is a challenge. While architecture relies on design practices to elicit positive experiences among occupants, they may fall short in terms of sensing occupants and reciprocating their needs in an empathic manner. Therefore, in this position paper, we argue for the need for empathic technologies to shape buildings of the digital age. We believe that buildings that can empathically interact with occupants will enhance occupants’ experiences of well-being in indoor spaces. To that end, we describe one such smart building that may be made human-centric through the incorporation of empathic technologies for various architectural attributes. We thereafter talk of an ongoing case study for identifying the novel, subjective human experiences that may be afforded by empathic buildings of the digital age.

• Wo Meijer, Bent Verhoeff, Himanshu Verma, Jacky Bourgeois. Fast Drink: Mediating Empathy for Gig Workers [Abstract][Video]

  The digitization of services and global lock-downs have lead an explosion of delivery services, which use gig-workers as delivery personnel. They face apathy from both their employers and users of the service. Previous studies focused on mediating interactions between workers or workers and tasks. However, delivery presents the opportunity for HCI interventions to mediate the interaction between worker and users to increase their empathy. We conducted an empirical study where 60 participants ordered a drink with an app which randomly presented a different level of information about the delivery person (nothing; name and photo; heart rate). Initial results show no significant impact on empathy measures between conditions, however post-hoc analysis showed that heart rate lead to increased Compassionate and decreased Affective empathy. This raises the question of what ``type'' of empathy is beneficial for delivery personnel and the need to refine the concept and measures of empathy used in HCI.

• Maria Jose Vilches Gonzalez, Leya George, Lidia Miteva, Aneesha Singh. Developing Empathy towards Experiences of Invisible Disabilities Through Games [Abstract][Video]

  Hidden or invisible disabilities are invisible to the onlooker and can be physical, mental, or neurological conditions that limit a person’s movements, senses or activities. As a result, they can lead to misunderstandings, false perceptions, and judgments. Developing an understanding of the conditions and the limitations they impose on people who have these conditions might help to develop empathy and reduce stigma and misunderstanding. We investigate the use of games for this purpose. This paper reports a first qualitative survey study with 56 participants about their experiences of interacting with a paper prototype of a game about living with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and then answering questions regarding their perceptions of the game with respect to their own experiences. The study aimed to understand if we can unify the design of games for barriers faced by people with invisible disabilities. The prototype was redesigned based on the findings of the first study. Study 2 involved a playtesting session with 8 participants who did not have invisible disabilities engaging with the digital prototype. Their empathy quotient was measured before and after playing. While the study's results did not yield any statistically significant findings, they do offer some evidence that playing computer games can be a useful way to increase empathy towards people with invisible disabilities and provide design considerations for such games.

• Tim Schneegans, Andry Niclas, Kirsten Greiner, Ivo Benke, Alexander Mädche, Michael Beigl. Annotating Affect in the Field: A Case Study on the Usability of a Minimalist Smartwatch User Interface for Affect Annotation [Abstract][Video]

  Successful empathetic interaction requires an accurate understanding of the interaction partner's affect dynamics. Self-reported annotations provide a way to better understand affect and empathy in real-life; however, the necessary user interactions for collecting such data must be designed to be as unobtrusive as possible. To address this challenge, we explore the potential of a smartwatch annotation application for affect that aims to minimize user interaction effort while maximizing usability. In a field study conducted as part of a student career fair (N=9), we evaluated the feasibility and usability of our app. Participants reported high usability scores and our data collection successfully captured self-reported affect labels at a high temporal resolution. Our work contributes to the challenge of providing minimal obtrusive applications for the collection of self-reported labels of affective states.

• Luce Drouet, Froukje Sleeswijk Visser. Carine Lallemand. Using Empathy-Centric Design in Industry: Reflections from the UX Researcher, the Client, and the Method Expert [Abstract][Video]

  Empathic design provides tools and frameworks supporting designers to understand users’ experiences with products or services. However, how does one hand over this empathic understanding of users to other internal stakeholders shaping the service experience? In this contribution, we reflect on a three-year implementation of an empathy-centric design approach in an industrial context with a low user experience maturity from three different professional viewpoints: ours as UX researchers, the one of a company manager, and an expert researcher on empathy in design. These narrative introspective accounts unveil some of the main benefits, opportunities, and challenges of implementing an empathy-centric design approach in the industry. We discuss and confront them to prior work. We contribute to the field of empathic design with rich in-situ research insights and principles for a successful empathic approach.

Call for Participation

While HCI and design research acknowledged the importance of empathy to the design of user-centered technologies and services, there remain open questions about: assessing empathy, its diversity, and related tensions.

In this one-day interactive workshop, we will consolidate existing theories and conceptualization of empathy, coalesce them to form a comprehensive and coherent framework, scrutinize the seams, and examine the overarching attributes of Empathy-Centric Design. This will lead to the formulation of its research agenda.

• Assessment of empathy. What methods and measurement tools can we rely on to assess empathy and their implications?
• Diversity and richness of empathy. How empathy could and should be modeled at different levels, e.g., through artificial neural networks?
• Empathy tensions and abuses. How can empathy be mis-used, e.g., the design of persuasive systems?

Submissions will be selected based on novelty, provocativeness, quality, and relevance to the workshop (i.e., related to Empathy-Centric Design topics and engaging discussion) through a rigorous, double-blind peer review process.

Important Dates

• Paper submission: February 23, 2023
• Notification of acceptance: March 6th, 2023
• Final revision deadline: Friday March 17th, 2023 AoE.
• Workshop day: April 23, 2023

Submission Format

We are proud to announce that accepted papers will be published in ACM’s International Conference Proceedings Series!

Submissions should be submitted via Easychair (link) and be anonymized according to the CHI anonymization policy..

• Submissions should include a 4-6 page manuscript (excluding references) using the ACM Master Article Submission Template (single column). Here you find the templates for Latex, Word, and Overleaf.

• Again: manuscripts need to be anonymized according to the CHI anonymization policy.
• If you use latex, please use: documentclass [sigconf, review, anonymous] {acmart}.

Submission Types

We invited a broad range of different types of papers, including:

• Research Paper: novel research on Empathy-Centric Design (i.e., empathy in HCI and related fields)
• Case study: research based on real-world experiences on Empathy-Centric Design topics
• Provocation/Position Paper: inspiring, controversial, provoking thoughts on Empathy-Centric Design
• Work-in-progress: a study, a research project in progress on Empathy-Centric Design topics
• Demos: prototypes and new technology concepts that will be tested during the workshop (including a description of what attendees will experience through the demos) related to Empathy-Centric Design topics
• Pictorials: visual components (e.g., diagrams, sketches, illustrations, renderings, photographs, annotated photographs, and collages) accompanying text to convey new ideas and contribute to Empathy-Centric Design

Review Process

All submissions will be selected based on novelty, provocativeness, quality, and relevance to the workshop (i.e., related to Empathy-Centric Design topics and engaging discussion) through a rigorous, double-blind peer review process.

General and Program Chairs will oversee the review process, including establishing a program committee (PC) of past EmpathiCH ’22 authors and those with expertise in the topic, selecting a minimum of three knowledgeable reviewers for each submission (at least one of which will be a member of the PC), taking decision for conditional paper acceptance or rejection based on the resulting reviews at a formal committee meeting with PC members.

Note: only minor revisions will be accepted, and the submissions will be reviewed within 2 weeks.

After Acceptance

After acceptance, we will ask the authors to prepare a final camera-ready version and a summary of changes to be reviewed by the program committee before final acceptance. Authors will also be asked to prepare a 4-8 minute video summarizing their work, which we will publish on the EmpathiCH workshop website. One week before the workshop, we will ask the participants to familiarize themselves with the papers and the videos. Additionally, we will invite all authors to join a special Slack channel to facilitate informal communication.

At least one author of each accepted paper must attend the workshop, and all participants must register for the workshop for at least one day of the conference.

Finally the camera-ready version of the paper will be published in ACM’s International Conference Proceedings Series.

Contact

Please direct queries to Wo Meijer (w.i.m.t.meijer@tudelft.nl) or Luce Drouet (luce.drouet@uni.lu).