Capturing Teens’ Voice in Designing Supportive Agents

Adolescence is a period of intense transformation that requires social interactions and emotional support. When such support is not available, technology can offer a solution. We conducted a participatory design study with the aim of producing content recommendations for a supportive conversational agent (CA) for adolescents. Twenty teens between the ages of 12 to 18 were invited to converse about issues they were experiencing and offer conversational support to each other. Analysis of participants’ conversations revealed that stress was the most frequent problem participants would seek support for. Participant responses to each other's problems offered both cognitive and emotional support, including advice on changing one's behavior, seeking help from others, prioritizing one's wellbeing, and statements of unconditional emotional support, among others. The findings indicate that many of the observed conversational solutions can be programmed in a supportive CA to appeal to a large group of adolescents.