Publication Type
Conference Proceeding Article
Version
publishedVersion
Publication Date
6-2026
Abstract
Intergenerational conversations often break down when differences in tone, language, or expectations lead participants to feel dismissed or misunderstood. In this work, we explore how people envision AI-driven chatbot interventions for addressing communication problems in text-based intergenerational family chat. We conducted a scenario-based design interview with 10 pairs of family members from different generations, in which participants designed chatbot interventions that varied in intervention target and timing. Our findings show that participants expect chatbots to perform multiple themes of intervention, including mediating understanding, providing emotional support, offering evaluative commentary, and guiding interaction through behavioral suggestions. These expectations varied systematically across intervention contexts, giving rise to distinct chatbot roles such as neutral mediators, message coaches, repair facilitators, and emotion regulators. Across these roles, participants positioned chatbots as moral advisors that evaluate communicative appropriateness and exercise varying degrees of moral authority. Rather than prescribing specific system behaviors, this work offers a conceptual and exploratory account of AI-mediated intervention in intergenerational communication, and articulates key design tensions that arise when chatbots are imagined as socially and morally involved actors in intimate family interactions.
Keywords
AI-mediated Communication, Intergenerational Communication, Communication Accommodation Theory, Human-AI Interaction
Discipline
Artificial Intelligence and Robotics
Research Areas
Information Systems and Management
Areas of Excellence
Digital transformation
Publication
DIS '26: Proceedings of the 2026 Designing Interactive Systems Conference, Singapore, June 13-17
First Page
2709
Last Page
2724
ISBN
9798400725630
Identifier
10.1145/3800645.3813010
Publisher
ACM
City or Country
Singapore
Citation
ZHANG, Tianyi; POH, Emran Bin Elias; HOU, Yueyue; LEE, Yi-Chieh; ZHANG, Renwen; LI, Jiannan; and TANG, Anthony.
“Grandpa, can you speak nicer?”: envisioned chatbot roles and design tensions in intergenerational communication conflicts. (2026). DIS '26: Proceedings of the 2026 Designing Interactive Systems Conference, Singapore, June 13-17. 2709-2724.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/11133
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1145/3800645.3813010