Towards Explainable AI Writing Assistants for Non-native English Speakers

TL;DR

This paper investigates the challenges non-native English speakers face when using AI writing assistants, emphasizing the need for explanations to improve their ability to assess AI-generated paraphrases and proposing interface designs to address this.

Contribution

It identifies the lack of explanations as a key barrier for NNESs and proposes four interface designs to enhance AI writing assistants for non-native speakers.

Findings

NNESs struggle to evaluate AI paraphrases without explanations

Proposed interfaces incorporate explanations to support NNESs

User-centered designs improve understanding of AI suggestions

Abstract

We highlight the challenges faced by non-native speakers when using AI writing assistants to paraphrase text. Through an interview study with 15 non-native English speakers (NNESs) with varying levels of English proficiency, we observe that they face difficulties in assessing paraphrased texts generated by AI writing assistants, largely due to the lack of explanations accompanying the suggested paraphrases. Furthermore, we examine their strategies to assess AI-generated texts in the absence of such explanations. Drawing on the needs of NNESs identified in our interview, we propose four potential user interfaces to enhance the writing experience of NNESs using AI writing assistants. The proposed designs focus on incorporating explanations to better support NNESs in understanding and evaluating the AI-generated paraphrasing suggestions.