A Contextualization Feature to Overcome Intergenerational

Language Barriers in Communication Apps

Adi Katz

and Yana Sophia

Industrial Engineering and Management Department, SCE, Ashdod, Israel

Keywords: Computer Mediated Communication, Contextualization, Language Barriers, Age-friendly Interfaces.

Abstract: We address existing intergenerational gaps in use of technology and in digital language, and their potential

negative consequences for the well-being of older-aged adults. We describe a new contextualization feature

which we designed as an addition to existing instant-messaging systems, to overcome misunderstandings and

communication breakdowns during synchronic message exchanges. In the current work we focus on

intergenerational language gaps within families, but our feature would be beneficial for bridging language

gaps between communicators in many different environments (e.g. between employees who use different

professional jargons, people from different nationalities and cultures, and so on). We designed a prototype

user interface for the feature and demonstrate it in the context of the WhatsApp messaging app.

1 INTRODUCTION

The world’s population is aging, as more and more

people reach longevity. According to the United

Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs

(2017), by 2030, older adults are expected to

outnumber children under age ten (1.41 billion versus

1.35 billion). Globally, the number of people aged

eighty years or over is projected to increase more than

threefold between 2017 and 2050, rising from 137

million to 425 million. This demographic transition

poses major challenges in many areas such as health

care systems, pension systems, the labor market and

life-long education. Longevity must come with

quality of life. As part of our vision to expand the

access of older-aged adults to a long-term quality of

life, we

focus on the provision of effective

communication via information and communication

technologies (ICTs), and on increasing social

inclusion for older-aged adults.

The rapid development of technologies raises

unparalleled socio-technological challenges and

opportunities which call for multidisciplinary

solutions in areas related to human-technology

interaction. System developers and interface

designers must address the demands and challenges

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8143-709X

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4331-7601

of that emerging technologies pose for older users,

and strive for better designs that are geared

specifically for them.

1.1 ICTs’ High Potential for Older

Adults

The rapid development of ICTs is leading to a

growing dependence of the world’s population on

them for basic information, social involvement, and

the performance of daily tasks. ICT use has a high

potential for allowing older adults to maintain

independence and social connectedness while

offering them a better quality of life (Olphert &

Damodaran, 2013). New technologies, especially

ICTs, provide many informational and

communicational opportunities for older adults and

offer a variety of practical, physical, social, and

psychological benefits (Nimrod, 2018). Nowadays,

with technology supporting almost every activity,

there are numerous opportunities for technology to

assist older people in everyday tasks such as gaining

quick access to information, financial planning,

making bank transactions from home, finding health-

related information and on-line assistance, booking

for entertainment and leisure venues and shopping.

Furthermore, by helping to overcome geographic and

166

Katz, A. and Sophia, Y.

A Contextualization Feature to Overcome Intergenerational Language Barriers in Communication Apps.

DOI: 10.5220/0010660800003060

In Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Computer-Human Interaction Research and Applications (CHIRA 2021), pages 166-173

ISBN: 978-989-758-538-8; ISSN: 2184-3244

transportation constraints, ICTs are particularly

beneficial to older adults who are isolated and/or

home bound (Choi & DiNitto, 2013). Valentine

(2006) has demonstrated the potential value of ICTs

as a new way to maintain and support the intimacy

between family members who live or spend large

amounts of time apart. ICTs offer a means to be

separate and together; they let family members

maintain intimacy by allowing information exchange

and opportunities for loving and caring for one

another online. By connecting family members and

friends, ICTs may decrease the isolation which is

more common among the elderly (Cornwell and

Waite, 2009) and facilitate the social inclusion of this

population. Adoption of technology by older adults

can improve their quality of life and well-being and

may increase their ability to live independently

(Orpwood et al., 2010).

1.2 Intergenerational Technology

Adoption and Use Gap

Although it might seem that older adults are open to

using new technologies, and there is evidence of wider

use and growing positive attitudes toward technology

among older adults over time (Wolfson et al., 2014),

there is still an inter-generational technological gap in

the use of ICTs (Bailey and Ngwenyama, 2010). Age

is an important factor in determining levels of

engagement with information and communication

technologies (Selwyn et al., 2003). The terms “digital

immigrants” and “digital natives” were coined by

Prensky (2001) to describe the difference in

experiences, capabilities, comprehension and attitudes

towards new digital technologies between two age-

groups. “Digital natives” are people born in the digital

era (usually also called Generation X and younger),

while “digital immigrants” refers to people born before

1964. Though the terms portray a dichotomy, this

generational digital divide is not strict since each group

is highly diverse in terms of its members’ experiences,

capabilities, and attitudes toward technologies (Zur &

Zur, 2011). Older adults are themselves a digitally

diverse demographic group (Ball et al., 2019), and the

digital divide within this sector is actually a “grey

divide”, with significant differences in technology use

within this population (Nimrod, 2018). Although the

immigrants-natives distinction is not restricted to age

differences, it can often explain generational gaps that

create misunderstandings, misperceptions and

communication breakdowns. Technology adoption is

associated with a higher cognitive ability and self-

efficacy in computer use, while higher computer

anxiety is associated with lower use of technology

(Czaja et al., 2006). The challenges and barriers that

older people face can lead to a digital exclusion that

may in turn lead to a social exclusion. ICTs have a very

important role for individual participation in the

common activities of the societies in which they live.

Consequently, there is an increasing need to design

age-friendly ICTs that let aging individuals adopt

newer technologies and become part of the digital

culture.

ICT use must overcome a combination of age-

related barriers and technology-related barriers. The

age-related barriers are mainly normal changes that a

person undergoes in cognition and in physical

conditions (such as sight impairment), along with

affective barriers (age-related perceptions and

attitudes towards technology). As to technology,

ICTs are usually not designed to be age-friendly. The

combination of barriers leads to intergenerational

gaps and the negative consequences of such gaps,

including deprivation of services and information that

the rest of the population benefits from, deterioration

of the sense of belonging, and social exclusion.

1.2.1 Normal Aging Changes as Barriers to

Adopting and Interacting with

Technology

People between the ages of 55 and 75 are typically

classified as “young-old” and those 75 years and

above are classified as “old-old” (Echt et al., 1998).

Aging comes with changes in perception, cognition,

control of movements and various physical

constraints. It is widely recognized that age-related

cognitive impairments and physical changes have

negative influences on the performance of various

tasks and activities. Aging reduces the speed of

cognitive processes, causes a diminution of working

memory capacity, and impairs performance of

activities such as decision making, comprehension,

learning, reasoning, skill acquisition and motor

activation (Head et al., 2002; Kennedy, Partridge, &

Raz, 2008; Lövdén et al., 2010; Wolfson et al., 2014;

Sandberg & Neely, 2016; Czaja, et al., 2019). The

various age-related cognitive decline and physical

constraints impact many aspects of the human-

computer interaction (Ganor, & Te’eni, 2016) and

therefore affect the use of ICTs by older-adults.

1.2.2 Affective Barriers to Adopting and

Interacting with Technology

In addition to physical and cognitive changes, many

older people have affective barriers to adopting and

interacting with new technologies. Vaportzis,

Clausen and Gow (2017) mention factors such as

A Contextualization Feature to Overcome Intergenerational Language Barriers in Communication Apps

167

older peoples’ lack of knowledge and confidence,

scepticism toward use of technology, perception of

technology as much too complex, feelings of

inadequacy, and unfavorable comparisons with

younger generations. Frustration, physical limitations

and usability difficulties are additional inhibitions to

using technologies (Heinz et al., 2013). Previous

studies also found that older adults experience greater

computer anxiety and feel more negative about the

effort required to master a technology (Czaja and Lee,

2002; Marquié et al., 2002). Also, many older adults

perceive ICTs as having a low value in their lives

(Selwyn et al., 2003), and some are simply resistant

to changing their existing media and communication

habits (Nimrod, 2018). While older-adults

acknowledge that ICTs help them preserve social

relationships remotely, many feel ostracized or

offended when those around them engage with ICTs

while they themselves cannot (Ball et al., 2019). A

high level of technophobia is mentioned as a factor

explaining some age-related digital divides (Czaja et

al., 2006, Nimrod, 2018). All these affective barriers

constrain online activities for older Internet users and

limit the benefits they might otherwise derive from

them.

1.2.3 Technology-related Barriers to

Adopting and Interacting with

Technology

ICT software interface conventions for controls are

often less familiar to novice older users, who also lack

the knowledge needed to interact effectively with

digital systems (Czaja, et al., 2019). In addition, most

technological artefacts are not specially designed to

meet the physiological and cognitive characteristics

of the older population (Selwyn et al., 2003). While

adaptation of human-computer interfaces has become

an important design principle, there is a paucity of

research on adaptation for older users and on age-

friendly interfaces (Ganor, & Te'eni, 2016). When

technologies are not geared to the unique

characteristics of this population, their advantages

cannot be fully utilized by it. Along with other

considerations, system interface designers need to

look at ways to reduce boundaries between the older

population and new technologies. Older adults might

be willing to use a new technology when its

usefulness and usability outweighs negatives feelings

about their self-efficacy (Heinz et al., 2013). A

previous work has presented principles and

guidelines for designing apps and products for older

adults, with an overview of the most relevant

elements: input devices, visual and auditory displays,

and information structured to improve perception and

comprehension (Czaja, et al., 2019). Much remains to

be done, however, in the realm of age-friendly

interfaces, if the aim is to increase the adoption and

use of ICTs by older-adults.

1.3 CMC Language Barriers as a Gap

across Generations

Contemporary interpersonal communication has

shifted away from traditional modes based on face-

to-face interaction to digital social platforms. Social

networking, text messaging and instant messaging,

are all methods that family, friends, and strangers too

now use to communicate (Lenhart, et al 2007).

Soffer (2010) claims that computer mediated

communications (CMC) has ushered in a new era of

“digital orality” with a unique writing culture.

Constraints related to the technological medium and

difficulties of texting, such as miniature telephone

buttons, give rise to a linguistic style that is

characterised by a hybrid discourse which combines

formal writing and informal speech-like (spoken)

features. This new and specialized informal language

requires new linguistic skills.

The acquisition of online literacy for digital

communication creates a linguistic gap that

distinguishes generation Y from the baby boomer

generation (Subramaniam & Razak, 2014). The use

of nonstandard language and new forms of slang in

social networks may lead to misunderstandings and

communication barriers. Most of the generation Y

communicators attempt to speed up their typing to

shorten response time. They are also eager to express

themselves. Hence they tend to be creative in using a

variety of abbreviated words (“b4” for before; “shud”

for should, etc.) compared to baby boomers.

Generation Y members also employ syntactical and

lexical reduction, language shortening, acronyms and

omissions (“BC” for because, “JK” for just kidding),

and tolerate misspellings and typos (Soffer, 2010;

Thurlow & Poff, 2011). The younger generation tends

to make many more spelling innovations, and uses

capitalization (e.g. ‘STOP’), interjections (‘ahah',

‘ugghhhhh’), accentuated punctuation (“he did

what??!!”), and a variety of emoticons (♥, ;), :/).

While members of the younger generation revolt

against formal writing rules and seek ways to express

their creativity and uniqueness (Soffer, 2010), older

users are more careful and restrained in their textual

communication, and their writing style is more

formalized. The digital writing styles of younger

users are sometimes off-putting to older adults

(Subramaniam & Razak, 2014).

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1.4 Contextualization as a Strategy to

Overcome Language across

Generation Gaps

In order to increase adoption of ICTs by older-adults,

designers must focus both on enhancing motivation

and lowering barriers to the use of these technologies.

Persuasive interactive designs are those which induce

behavioural changes (Fogg, 2009). According to

Fogg’s behavioural Model (FBM), a person with

increased motivation and increased ability has a

greater likelihood of performing a target behaviour.

Here the target behaviour we wish to encourage is

communication among family members via

synchronous chat applications, especially cross-

generational communication. Effective persuasive

technologies boost either motivation or ability. A

previous inspirational project named the Story

Machine (Marcus, 2012) designed and evaluated

powerful ways to improve inter-generational story-

sharing behaviour by persuading and motivating

people to increase story-sharing with other family

members. Our emphasis in the current project is on

increasing the ability dimension, by making

communication simpler. FBM maintains that

motivation alone – no matter how high – is not

enough to get people to perform a behaviour if they

do not have the ability to do it (e.g. if it is not

sufficiently “simple”).

Even when older adults are highly motivated to

communicate with other family members via

synchronic chat applications, their ability to do so is

low if they cannot figure out the meanings of words

and expressions used by the members of the younger

generation in the family. “Simplicity” is a function of

a person’s scarcest resource at any moment a

behaviour is triggered. We maintain that the scarcest

resources of cross-generational communicators are

time and brain cycles. According to FBM, if a target

behaviour requires time, then the behaviour is not

simple. With regard to “brain cycles”: if performing

a target behaviour causes someone to think hard, the

behavior might not be a simple one. Thinking deeply

or thinking in new ways suggests cognitive difficulty.

The contextualization feature that we designed serves

in FBM terms as a ‘facilitation trigger’ to reduce the

barriers to performing the target behaviour of

communicating whenever there is a language gap.

This type of trigger is appropriate for users that have

high motivation but lack ability. Our facilitator tells

users that understanding a digital text or an emoji is

easy to do, and will not require a resource that he or

she lacks at that moment. With only one click, the

user can get an explanation of the meaning of an

expression, abbreviation or emoji.

The idea of contextualization in CMC to prevent

or overcome potential communicational breakdowns

and misunderstandings, is not new. Previous research

and system design projects implemented

contextualization as a central component of efforts to

bridge communication gaps and hence achieve

effective communication in organizations. KMail, a

knowledge-enhanced e-mail product (Schwartz &

Te'eni, 2000), is a URL-based email system that

allows message senders to convert words and phrases

in outgoing emails into hyperlinks to organizational

memories. Thus in KMail, contextualization is

implemented via embedded links. KMail was

designed to achieve successful communication by

appropriately adapting messages based on differences

between message senders and their addressees.

Contextualization was implemented also in an email

system designed for customer service representatives

(CSRs) to overcome communication breakdowns

resulting from differences in perspectives, and

especially the lack of a technical background and

professional jargon knowledge from the customers’

side (Katz and Berman, 2011). In the current design

project, we follow the powerful idea of tying

knowledge to action with hyperlinks (Schwartz &

Te’eni, 2000) and apply it in the synchronic context

of instant messaging systems such as WhatsApp. For

each task, users need to have the right knowledge at

the right time. Just as knowledge-workers in

organizations do not have the time to actively seek the

organizational knowledge needed for executing their

tasks, so do people who communicate through instant

messaging systems. In ongoing conversations with

multiple participants in synchronic media,

communicators are required to reply instantly, and do

not have time to look up the meanings of expressions

and emoji symbols that are unfamiliar to them.

Therefore, it would be far more effective if the

missing meanings (the contextual knowledge to

understand message components) were able to find

them.

2 COMPONENTS AND

PROTOTYPE DESIGN

2.1 Dictionaries

Our contextualization feature for instant messaging

systems links to public and private dictionaries which

explain message components: expressions, phrases,

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idioms, concepts, slang, abbreviated words,

acronyms, interjections, and emojis. The contextual

knowledge retrieved from these dictionaries will

explain unfamiliar message components and thus

serve as a long-term resource for the message receiver

to fully understand incoming messages. The public

dictionaries are databases of widely used message

components, the meanings of which are known to the

general public. Private dictionaries are databases of

message components that are group-specific and

accessed only by group members. In the current

project we are interested in private family dictionaries,

which we call “Famictionaries”. Famictionaries

include specialized phrases, words, and terminologies

that run within the family. Famictionaries have the

ability to preserve a family’s private terminology and

create a shared family experience, thus strengthening

family ties and the sense of belonging and intimacy.

The contextualization feature is a participatory tool,

since users will be able to expand the dictionaries

dynamically by adding dictionary entries to more and

more message components. This way, the dictionaries

constantly expand and stay up to date with new

expressions and evolving terminology. Private

dictionaries will be created and updated by authorized

members of each group. Meanwhile, the public

dictionary will be built and updated by the instant

messaging system companies, in the same manner

that emojis are added to WhatsApp and updated from

time to time.

During message exchange, incoming messages

will be parsed to identify message components that

appear in both dictionaries, and these components

will appear in the message as embedded links. In

other words, segments of the dictionaries would link

up with the message components.

2.2 Prototype Design

We use various techniques known from the field of

HCI to develop our prototype contextualization

feature. In a preliminary study, we distributed

questionnaires using Google Forms via WhatsApp

and Facebook platforms to target end-users. The

distribution was to acquaintances and family

members. A total of 52 old adults (aged 65 and over)

and 56 children (aged 10-18) responded. We found

that 67.3% of adults and 38.9% of children reported

difficulty understanding text messages in family

groups. 61.1% of adults and 20.4% of the children

reported difficulty understanding emoji; 70.9% of

adults and 36.5% of children felt it was difficult for

them to keep up with the pace of WhatsApp

conversations. In open-ended questions regarding

feelings, it emerged that among adults feelings of

frustration and embarrassment arose as a result of

misunderstanding messages. Repeated comments

among the young participants were that grandparents

do not know how to use emoji correctly, that it takes

them a long time to type, and that grandparents do not

always understand jokes and conversation at all. In

addition to distributing the questionnaires, we

received valuable insights from participatory

observations in the correspondence of family

WhatsApp groups in which we are active on a daily

basis. Follow-up interviews (conducted face to face

or via Zoom) with selected subjects, 4 adults and 4

children, further supported the need for a tool to help

understand the meaning of message components (e.g.

utterances, abbreviations, emoji). In the next stage we

created personas (e.g. Grandpa David and grandchild

Tamir) and defined user scenarios that address the

needs of users, such as reading messages, adding a

phrase to a private dictionary, turning on/off a

dictionary or a cluster that groups several message

components within a dictionary. The interface design

follows well-known usability heuristics, principles

and guidelines. We conduct this project in

YOUsability, which is a usability lab located in the

Industrial Engineering and Management department

at SCE, the Shamoon College of Engineering in

Ashdod, Israel. YOUsability is a research centre for

developing and testing interactive technologies. We

will conduct usability tests in the lab with 3-4 end

users for each one of three family generations, and

will continue to develop the interface in an iterative

manner. Figures 1-2 show prototype screens that

demonstrate WhatsApp message exchanges between

Grandpa David and his grandson Tamir. Figure 1

presents Tamir’s view, and Figure 2 presents Grandpa

David’s view. The left screenshots in both figures

show the view before the user clicks on an embedded

link and the right screenshots in both figures show the

view after the click, including the contextual

knowledge retrieved from the dictionary. The display

style can vary according to age, for example the

contextual knowledge for the concept that Tamir did

not understand (What’s your bag?) is presented in a

comic word bubble style that is suitable for children

(see Figure 1).

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Figure 1: Grandchild’s view.

Figure 2: Grandparent’s view.

2.3 Applying the Signal Detection

Theory

We use signal detection theory (Green & Swets,

1966) to explain the system’s decision-making

process on whether to link up a message component

to its dictionary entry during message parsing. Table

1 shows the application of signal detection theory to

the context of contextualization. A message

component (stimulus) is either familiar or unfamiliar

to a certain user, and the system should display

(response) only unfamiliar components as embedded

links to dictionary entries. An effective system must

have many hits and correct rejections, and very few

misses and false alarms. In other words, we need to

ensure a nonintrusive user experience (few false

alarms but many correct rejections), with useful

contextual information whenever there is need to

bridge language gaps (many hits and few misses).

Table 1: Application of signal detection theory.

Familiarity

User view

No Yes

Embedded lin

Hit False alar

No embedded

lin

Miss Correct rejection

Effective message views that suit a given user would

be produced in several ways: (1) the user regulates

information overload by activating or deactivating the

contextualization feature, fully or partially (for

example, activate the Famictionary and deactivate the

public dictionary). Depending on the user’s choice,

the links associated with the activated dictionary will

be filtered. Users will also be able to enter specific

dictionary entries and turn them off, or even more

efficiently turn off clusters of dictionary entries so

that they do not appear as embedded links in

incoming messages. (2) In the initial activation of the

contextualization feature, the user will be asked to

complete a short survey (with questions such as age,

country/state, and languages) to create a personal

profile. Based on the survey, the system will assess

the user’s generational affiliation and the words and

phrases that are expected to be unfamiliar to him or

her. Survey results will guide formation of the

embedded links presented to the user as part of

incoming messages. (3) The contextualization feature

will also employ a machine-learning component that

continuously incorporates new data regarding a user’s

message exchanges. By tracking the usage (and non-

usage) of dictionary entries in messages, the system

will effectively determine which dictionary entries

are useful for a given user as contextualization for

comprehension. The idea here is that a user most

likely knows the meaning of a message component if

that message component was used in previous

messages he or she sent, or appears in a sufficient

number of incoming messages in various groups to

which he or she belongs. It may also be assumed that

if a user does not click on an embedded link of a

message component several times, then the entry is

not useful for that user (4) To overcome situations

where the system does not detect a message

component which is unfamiliar to the user (miss), the

user can select that message component and check

whether there is a dictionary entry for it.

An additional option that lets the user control the

amount of information linked to a message

component, according to the user’s momentary

(situational) needs, is to choose the amount of

contextual information displayed for that component.

A Contextualization Feature to Overcome Intergenerational Language Barriers in Communication Apps

171

Each message component may have several layers of

information. A quick and parsimonious display of the

meaning which lets incoming messages be

understood will appear at the bottom of the screen

when the user clicks on an embedded link. This

parsimonious display is shown in Figures 1-2. Users

who wish to expand their knowledge about a message

component that has a dictionary entry can click on the

triangle to access the full information for that

component (synonyms, example sentences, etc.).

3 LIMITATIONS

A requirement that is vital to the feature’s success yet

difficult to control, is a sufficient level of user

participation in the task of updating the private

dictionaries (the ‘Famictionary’ in the current

project). In this respect, our feature suffers from the

same shortcomings as any other knowledge-

management system (Schwartz & Te'eni, 2000). Our

design approach is persuasive, with interface

elements that encourage the act of updating. On the

one hand, interface elements should increase the

motivation for updating (e.g. including gamification

components such as winning special stickers) and on

the other hand the interface design will simplify the

ability to update (by applying usability principles,

focusing on ease of use and efficiency). Of course,

there is also a challenge that relates to the creation of

appropriate message views. The system’s successful

use depends on the system’s ability to properly define

the views relevant to each user. We previously

described how signal detection theory explains the

system’s decision-making process regarding the

creation of links to dictionary entries when creating a

user’s view. As aforementioned, our feature will

employ a machine-learning component that

continuously incorporates new data regarding a user’s

message exchanges. Signal detection theory, which is

closely related to statistical decision making theories,

provides a base for modern machine learning

(Sumner & Sumner, 2020). Previous work already

employed signal detection theory in the field of

machine learning (Hung, Jiang, & Wang, 2020;

Demestichas et al., 2021).

4 CONCLUSIONS

Our preliminary user study findings, conducted using

questionnaires, participatory observations, and

interviews, support the research literature regarding

language barriers as a gap across generations, and the

difficulties that older adults have in interpersonal

communication via ICTs. We offer a solution to

reduce the gap and its possible negative consequences

for the well-being of adults. Our solution is a

contextualization feature which we designed as an

addition to existing instant-messaging systems, to

overcome misunderstandings and communication

failures during synchronous message exchanges.

While we focus in the current work on

intergenerational language gaps within families, such

a contextualization feature can be just as beneficial

for bridging any language gaps between

communicators in different environments and

communicational domains, such as communication

between employees who use different professional

jargons, people from different nationalities and

cultures, and so on.

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