“Tell Me Your Story, I’ll Tell You What Makes It Meaningful’’: characterization of meaningful social interactions between intercultural strangers and design considerations for promoting them

Abstract

Positive meaningful interactions are encounters that promote positive attitudes and learning about others, which are needed to develop healthy social fabrics and cultural diversity. However, individuals tend to interact more with people like themselves often avoiding encounters with others that seem to be different, for example, with intercultural strangers. Though previous HCI work has been concerned with exploring meaningful experiences with products and technologies as a way of promoting product attachment, the field lacks studies exploring how design could facilitate intercultural MSI. Designing interventions to support intercultural MSI requires i) understanding what characteristics make these interactions meaningful and ii) how these characteristics can be addressed through design. In this study, we contribute to the literature by producing knowledge on these aspects. Based on an analysis of 56 real-life stories about intercultural MSI and an idea generation session with designers, we characterize intercultural MSI with four dimensions (outcomes, feelings, context, and elements) and we identify four design considerations to be taken into account when designing interventions to support intercultural MSI. Hence, our contribution is to formulate this knowledge while highlighting how the characteristics and perceptions of intercultural MSI can be applied to design new technologies that promote this kind of interaction.