- Hi my name is Maggie Hughes,
and today I'll be presenting Keeper: A Synchronous
Online Conversation Environment
Informed by In-Person Facilitation Practices.
This project was completed by myself and Dev Roy
and we are at the Center for Constructive Communication
at the MIT media lab.
Keeper's design is informed by circle process.
Circle process is a facilitation style
in which a facilitator or circle keeper gathers a group.
They leverage tools such as talking pieces
to facilitate turn takings
that enable deep and vulnerable sharing.
And facilitator use different mechanisms
such as a center piece and the prompts they design
to invite participants to share stories
from their personal experiences,
foster connection with the group,
and ground one another in that community and its values.
Circle of the day is used often
within the restorative and transformative justice movements
that are in response to traditional punitive justice
and mass incarceration in the US.
Circle originates with indigenous groups in North America
and continues to be practiced by these people today.
And it's a foundation of many other
conversation facilitation styles.
For time this is a highly truncated explanation
of the history, structure, and importance of circle
and restorative / transformative justice.
For further information we'd recommend you learn
from the organizations referenced here.
And while such practices have proven to be effective
in enhancing effective and enhancing empathetic
community oriented meaningful communication,
rarely do we see interface
designed informed by that knowledge.
With this in mind we ask how we might design
a virtual environment informed by circle practice
and knowledge of circle practitioners?
And if we design that environment might it foster
an experience closer to that desire in circle
than a traditional virtual call environment might?
To answer this question we first embarked
on an ethnographic study and became trained in the practice.
We then designed a tool informed by the practice
and iterated and evaluated that design.
And today we'll discuss the latter two points.
Informed by this question
we identified high social presence, tone,
and ease of communication
to be structural components of circle
that are not bound by the facilitator themselves
but could be bound by the environment.
It is an important foundation for this project
that we did not intend to replace the facilitator
or to execute circle automatically,
but rather to leverage the knowledge
from the field of H-C-I
and create a container informed by the practice of circle.
To begin by breaking down social presence
we wanted to break the traditional Zoom grid of a video call
and a conference call online.
We also removed video as a component
and explored the possibility that audio only calls
with abstract avatars can enable
a more vulnerable and inviting conversation space.
We then explored how folks might be supported
with their avatars and sitting in a circle.
And we explored how making that physical act
of dragging and dropping the talking piece to your avatar
could mimic the passing of a talking piece.
We explored social presence as well
through the use of light glowing within the avatars.
And we grounded the tone in blues and violet hues
to create a calming presence throughout the environment.
All animations are calibrated
to a slow calm breathing rate.
And we implemented features such as a queue, a raise hand,
to facilitate ease of turn taking.
Further we introduced a tool to signal a flag
or a harm as well as positive affirmation.
All together the platform offers a space
to show visible guidelines, the queue,
and questions that are offered.
And the facilitator is shown through a darker avatar.
We evaluate the study in three parts.
First a qualitative analysis with 72 participants.
Followed by a randomized control trial
with 100 participants.
And closing with a semi-structured set of interviews
with eight expert facilitators.
From the qualitative study they highlighted
that the social anxiety from waiting to speak
and awkward silences was nearly completely eliminated.
The tool allowed them to listen actively.
Participants highlighted that they felt
close to the participants
though they could not see an image of the others.
And many emphasized that this enabled the conversation
to go smoother than it might in other video calls.
From the randomized control trial
we see a significant increase in sense of ease and tone
from the control to full treatment.
We identify that specifically within tone
participants felt increased feeling of relaxation and calm
and increased willingness to be vulnerable
and listen actively.
Further, participants felt more connected to others,
they felt the participants presence further,
and a specialness within the conversation
more than they did when in a traditional audio call.
Finally through expert interviews it became clear
that facilitators saw this was clearly a conscious space
and an intentional space.
That keeper did fill an identified need
through introducing things such as the talking pieces
and sitting in a circle.
And that the space felt human though it was abstract.
However a clear tension and critique arose
for it can be hard for facilitators to facilitate
without being able to see the faces of participants,
especially in moments of tension.
In next steps we are exploring how memory and data
might influence the quality of conversations
by making hidden dynamics more visible.
This notably breaks from the clear inspiration
from circle practice.
Yet could be valuable in making clear power dynamics
and other inequalities that might exist
within a conversation.
As we close we'd like to thank Danya Cunningham,
Marshall Ganz, and Belén Saldias
for their contributions to this work.
Especially Belén Saldias who built the foundation of Keeper.
And we'd like to acknowledge
the Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth,
Unity Circles and Suffolk Center for Restorative Justice
who enabled this project to happen
based off of their teaching.
Thank you.