CANDY: a framework to design Conversational AgeNts for Domestic sustainabilitY

Abstract

In the 2020s, world countries are called to take action to solve global issues, as defined in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). In our research, we are interested in exploring how Conversational Agents can be exploited to pursue the above goals, particularly in domestic spaces where CAs are becoming more and more popular. As a preliminary step in this research work, we organized a focus group with seven participants aimed at: i) investigating the potential of Conversational Agents - integrated with digital devices - to promote a more sustainable behavior at home; ii) eliciting the requirements on conversational interaction that such CAs should meet for this purpose. From the experience and findings of the focus group, we distilled a conceptual framework called CANDY, which highlights the core design dimension of Conversational Agents for Sustainability, and can be used to guide the processes of requirements elicitation and design for this category of CAs.