Toward Needs-Conscious Design: Co-Designing a Human-Centered Framework for AI-Mediated Communication
Robert Wolfe, Aayushi Dangol, JaeWon Kim, Alexis Hiniker

TL;DR
This paper proposes a human-centered framework called Needs-Conscious Design for AI-mediated communication, emphasizing intentionality, presence, and receptiveness to human needs, to foster genuine connection and address issues like Empathy Fog.
Contribution
It introduces a novel Needs-Conscious Design framework based on NVC principles, including design concepts, illustrative examples, and guiding questions for consentful AI-mediated communication.
Findings
Identified Empathy Fog as a key challenge in AI-mediated communication.
Developed design concepts for three pillars: Intentionality, Presence, Receptiveness.
Provided guiding questions to ensure consent and ethical considerations in design.
Abstract
We introduce Needs-Conscious Design, a human-centered framework for AI-mediated communication that builds on the principles of Nonviolent Communication (NVC). We conducted an interview study with N=14 certified NVC trainers and a diary study and co-design with N=13 lay users of online communication technologies to understand how NVC might inform design that centers human relationships. We define three pillars of Needs-Conscious Design: Intentionality, Presence, and Receptiveness to Needs. Drawing on participant co-designs, we provide design concepts and illustrative examples for each of these pillars. We further describe a problematic emergent property of AI-mediated communication identified by participants, which we call Empathy Fog, and which is characterized by uncertainty over how much empathy, attention, and effort a user has actually invested via an AI-facilitated online…
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