Dara: A to Help Indian Artists and Designers Discover International Opportunities

Archana Prasad Indrani Medhi Thies significant time and effort. Typically, this is best done via Sean Blagsvedt Microsoft Research a human matchmaker - someone who knows of Tej Pochiraju , opportunities and makes introductions. However, this Jaaga [email protected] person might be limited by their own social circles and Bangalore, India knowledge. The few websites available are usually [email protected] intimidating and not personalized. Our vision is to design [email protected] and develop Dara, a conversational chatbot that asks a [email protected] series of questions to its users and is able to suggest relevant opportunities. As a first step we built a Wizard- of-Oz prototype and interviewed 9 users about their experience. We then designed the personality, conversation flow and referral nomination system for our Abstract next-level prototype. We conducted a preliminary Many designers and artists in India, because of limited evaluation with 14 users in Bangalore, India. We discuss domestic patronage, are interested in international the implications for design of targeted at the opportunities. However, they experience difficulties in creative community in the developing world. discovering such opportunities. Finding relevant grants, funds, residencies, jobs, and collaborators takes Author Keywords

Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for Chatbots; artists; designers; India personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third- CCS CONCEPTS party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact •Human-centered computing → the Owner/Author. C&C '19, June 23–26, 2019, San Diego, CA, USA design; user studies © 2019 Copyright is held by the owner/author(s). ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-5917-7/19/06. https://doi.org/10.1145/3325480.3326577

Introduction designers could refer to [16], [22], but these are often Contemporary arts practices have poor patronage both overwhelming, intimidating and not personalized. from public and private sources, in developing countries Conversational chatbots are becoming increasingly like India [3], [6]. This leads to limited visibility for popular digital assistants for retrieving information. A artists and designers, both domestically and chatbot is an AI chat agent that simulates a human-like internationally. Those artists and designers who manage conversation by allowing users to ask questions, and in to collaborate with international artists and institutions return generating meaningful answers. Recent popular often have their careers leapfrog ahead [28]. chatbots include Xiaoice in China (available on the International funders like the British Council [4], Goethe messaging app WeChat) [29], Nataasha in India Institut [10], or even mailing lists like Funds for NGOs (available on Hike messenger) [18] and also Ruuh [8] have relevant open calls and grants. Invitations or (developed by Microsoft and available on )[20]. calls from places like Schloss Solitude [1], V&A [24] or Xiaoice, Natasha and Ruuh are all targeted at general festivals like SXSW [21] are also desirable. Visibility to purpose chitchat. There are also chatbots for specific curators from Tate [23], MOMA [17] and similar verticals like banking, insurance, retail, healthcare, institutions would also be appreciated by most aspiring construction, and hospitality. However, chatbots aimed artists and designers. at artists and designers are few and far between, especially in the Indian context. Yet the vast majority of aspiring Indian creatives lack the social connections or capital required to identify relevant Our vision is to design and develop a conversational opportunities abroad. The Indian art market pales in chatbot, Dara (or “thread” in the Indic language comparison to the US, UK and China [9] and in 2017 ), that ask a series of questions to aspiring average per capita yearly income in India was just artists and designers and is able to suggest relevant $1800 [9], with online Indian artists earning $3600 [13]. opportunities in response. In this extended abstract we Hence opportunities to collaborate internationally often present some of our early work on Dara. We first cost 6-9 months salary, with the price of European describe our Wizard-of-Oz [15] prototype and interviews flights + boarding easily exceeding $2000. with 9 users about their experience. We then present the design for the next-level prototype and a preliminary Finding relevant opportunities in the creative sector— evaluation of that prototype with 14 users in Bangalore, grants, funds, residencies, jobs, gigs, sponsors, etc.— India. We close with our conclusions for design of takes significant time and effort. Traditionally this is best conversational agents for the creative sector and future done via a human matchmaker or connector who knows plans for Dara. of opportunities and makes introductions. This person, however, may be limited by their own social circles and Related Work breadth of knowledge. There are also a limited number The idea of chatbots originated at MIT [26], [27] where of websites, platforms and forums that artists and the ‘Eliza’ chatbot was built to emulate a Rogerian psychotherapist. The study found that Eliza’s users

believed the computer program really heard and worldwide. We drive the adoption of Dara with help from understood their problems and could help them in a our partner cultural institutions. constructive way. Methodology In recent relevant studies researchers have studied the The chatbot under development experience of first-time chatbot users and have found The gender of Dara is in keeping with existing chatbots, that participants preferred chatbots which provided which are largely female—Xiaoice [29], Natasha [18], either a ‘human-like’ natural language conversation Ruuh [20]. When artists and designers start a ability, or used a familiar turn-based messaging interface conversation with Dara, she would guide them through a [14]. Findings suggested providing clear indication of series of questions, learning about the user and then chatbot capabilities, indicating when the chatbot fails to suggesting potential opportunities in other countries, and perform a task, and ending a conversation gracefully. Figure 1: SCREENSHOT Dara’s relevant potential collaborators. The questions would be Other researchers have proposed design of chatbots with Facebook page with chat window about the user’s demographics, practice and artistic or and voice interaction to make conversations more engaged. design projects. She would also try to get a sense of the alive and natural [2] user’s personality if they chose to undertake the There have been chatbot studies aimed at specific modified Big 5 personality test [19], to help suggest application areas from assisting users to discover collaborators with personalities that complement. relevant MOOCS [11] to developing and deploying Dara is built on top of the Microsoft Bot Framework and chatbot services that connect users seeking fashion then connects to a web control on https://dara.network advice with stylists [25]. Within tools to support and (https://m.me/dara.network) designers, researchers have helped novice designers (Figure 1). It leverages the LUIS language processing approach others for resources by scaffolding the help- engine and Azure search features as well. Its backend seeking process and helping them write more effective logic systems reside on a Node.js server. As users introduction [12]. interact with Dara, certain responses build a user profile To our knowledge ours is the first chatbot study, at least and desired collaborators. The user profile consists of within the Indian context, which aims at creating a professional category (from synonyms in the “Tell me chatbot to help artists look for better opportunities. about your practice?” answer), location (using Google APIs to parse location from answers to “Where do you Background live?), plus organization, email, mobile, etc. Users are Our work is done as part of an online digital arts project then matched using their profile and desired collaborator that is supported and in collaboration with the British category, location (and later personality results). Council [5]. It is also the third-place winner for the Facebook Community Challenge [7]. If successful, the The Wizard-of-Oz and initial interviews project will potentially serve as a directory for artists and When we began, our chatbot was still under designers operating in India and the UK, and eventually development and not ready for a user experience test,

so as a first step we decided to conduct an exploratory owned to engagement. This was followed by Wizard-of-Oz (WoZ) [15] study. 3 questions focused on the user’s profile - what areas The link to the chatbot on a dedicated, private Facebook within the arts they most wanted to learn about, their page was previously shared with users ahead of the working style and areas of interest within the creative study. The chat session was scheduled such that the sector. The third section comprised of questions on Wizard would also be available and viewing the chat notification preferences - if and how often would they from their computer. The Wizard and study participant like to be contacted by Dara. The last section focused on never came face-to-face. The participants were told that the user’s previous and ongoing creative projects - there might be a human involved in the chat, however whether they were skillsets and ideal personality the extent to which the human (Wizard) would be characteristics they would prefer for their projects. involved was not revealed. Once the chat was over, we conducted interviews with 9 users. There were 2 male and 7 female users between Participants in our WoZ study started with using the actual chatbot, but when the bot was not able to return a the ages of 26 and 35. Their backgrounds included dance, theatre, museology, visual arts, art conservation Figure 2: WoZ DETAIL. meaningful response (usually because it could not and art administration. 6 respondents were from the UK window during WoZ session. process a question or statement from the participant), the Wizard would take over using a standard refrain: and 3 were from India. 5 respondents had never interacted previously with a chatbot, 3 had interacted “It looks like we've reached an impasse so let's move our with a service chatbot and one had previously interacted conversation. Please click on with a chatbot on Twitter. We asked participants about http://m.me/1811970772440150 to continue to chat” their experience with Dara, including before and after When the participant clicked this link, they would start a the Wizard handoff, getting into details about her tone, new conversation, but this time, the Wizard would mannerism, interests and what she should ideally avoid continue the conversation (Figure 2), unbeknownst to or whether any behavior or question made participants the participant. The Wizard and user would continue to uneasy. chat until the 10-minute session was completed. In the

interview briefing participants were asked to conclude First round observations when there was a natural stopping point in the Participants liked that the experience with Dara was conversation around the 10 minute limit. If the “more of a conversation”. Having an exchange with participant did not choose to end the session, the Wizard someone “more human” and “getting immediate asked to end the conversation at a natural stopping responses” was something they enjoyed. They found point. Dara to be “easy and fun”. They also liked that they The first set of questions that were primarily conducted were able to “bat an idea with someone non- by the bot included demographic queries - name, judgmental”. At the same time participants did not want gender, email, age and location. Followed by questions Dara to be “too chummy” or “over apologetic” if she on areas of practice and skills. Then there were 8 could not return a useful result. They did not want her to questions on tech usage spanning from type of hardware

be “over-inquisitive” and pretending to know her users used open-ended and clean language to reduce her too well. Some said they would not be comfortable being perceived as opinionated. Dara would state clearly sharing their photographs on their first chat encounter. her usage of any information shared with her at the They wanted the information Dara provided be “to the outset, to allay any fears they might have on their data point” and for opinions to be positive. privacy. We used a “coaching style of conversation”, so that users felt encouraged to open up and “bat ideas They liked that Dara had the potential to increase their around with” Dara. She would also try to get a sense of professional networks, giving them greater visibility, the user’s personality if they chose to undertake the connecting and providing information about the work modified Big 5 personality test, to help suggest potential collaborators do. Participants wanted to know collaborators with personalities that complemented. She about the personality of potential collaborators (e.g. offered an option for participants to nominate others to were they “particularly organized or extroverted?”) and join her network. When users had got to the end of her deemed it as a critical aspect of a successful pairing. conversation flow, she would offer a menu that gave They valued that the connections she would make would them options to view and edit their profile and projects, be personalized. They said online directories took time to manage notifications from her or take a personality test. sift through. They saw that the more people that they If she was unable to parse a query from the user helped to bring onto Dara’s network, the more useful it correctly, she would request politely for more clarity and would be for them in the future. Participants did not acknowledge without being apologetic that being early in want Dara to share their personal information without her learning curve caused her code to break. prior permission, especially to corporates. A visual identity, a way to imagine Dara was deemed to be necessary by most participants. 14 participants were asked to visit a dedicated Facebook page and engage with the fully automated Dara The working prototype, user study and follow-up prototype (Figure 4). The age range of the participants was 31-46 years. There were 6 male and 8 female Figure 3: DARA CHARACTER interviews participants. All of them were from India. 7 of the DESIGN Details showing Dara as a Dara was illustrated as a 2D rendering of a stylized stylized human figure. participants had interacted with a service bot, but only human figure (a female) (Figure 3). We used this as the on rare occasions. The average time in engaging with primary profile picture on her Facebook profile. In Dara was 6 mins. addition, we adjusted the conversation flow for Dara to give information about herself, before seeking We interviewed the participants immediately after their information about her user. Conversation flow led with engagement with Dara. Interviews were conducted as a questions on practice and interests, not projects and phone conversation where we ran participants through a skills. This was found to be more authentic versus series of 16 questions. We asked them about their “nosey”. Only when users clarified motives to engage experience chatting with Dara, their opinions on her with Dara, did she request for more in-depth information personality and functions, the kinds of collaborations that on the users’ recent, showcase-worthy projects. Dara

Dara should suggest, and domains she should be awareness of Dara and her potential to connect creators. proficient in. We will continue our iterative process of developing her personality, tweaking her conversation flow, style and Findings tone, as well as adding features that users find critical to Participants found the visual identity of the bot critical to their continued usage. engage. They liked the stylized human figure visualization. The personality tests as part of collaborator Acknowledgments recommendations were perceived as both fun and useful. We thank Shivang Suchak, Vipin Saini, Rita Dhankani The ability to re-take the test or choose to display and Deepika Arwind for their technical and creative summarized results as part of one’s profile was contributions to Dara’s development. considered helpful to increase potential collaboration opportunities. Menus were found to be useful for References Figure 4: FACEBOOK PROTOTYPE navigation, but participants wanted to see them as a [1] Akademie Schloss Solitude. http://www.akademie- solitude.de/en DETAIL. Chat dialog window in part of the conversation flow. Participants felt safe our fully functional Facebook sharing about their work with the bot. They wanted the [2] Angga, P. A., Fachri, W. E. , Elevanita, A., Suryadi, and Agushinta, R. D. "Design of chatbot with 3D prototype. bot ideally to have an open and friendly personality, avatar, voice interface, and facial expression," 2015 while not being opinionated or overly directive. They International Conference on Science in Information thought that the bot should have good domain Technology (ICSITech), Yogyakarta, 2015, pp. 326- knowledge, be self-aware and witty. They wanted to see 330. the bot’s tone ideally modify to context, and for it to fail [3] Arts funding in India: Hard times require furious “gracefully” without self-deprecation. To bring more dancing people to Dara’s “network”, they felt that showcasing her https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/southasia/2013/01/14/arts- community and their work would be key to new users. funding-in-india/ [4] British Council Art Opportunities. Conclusions and Future Work https://www.britishcouncil.org/arts/opportunities Through our work we observed that artists and designers [5] British Council Open Call. found the one-on-one conversation style with a chatbot https://www.britishcouncil.in/programmes/inspired- by-india/70-years-india-digital-open-call to be a personalized, human way to discover relevant [6] Daugherty, Diane. Fifty Years on: Arts Funding in opportunities and collaborators. The quality of the Kerala Today. Asian Theatre Journal Vol. 17, No. 2 creatives in the seed network would hugely determine (Autumn, 2000), pp. 237-252. Figure 5: SCREENSHOT OF the growth of the bot’s community. We have just DARA’S WEBSITE Fully enabled [7] Facebook Community Challenge. released the web version (Figure 5) of Dara publicly on web-based chat running on https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2018/0 Dara’s website. dara.network via the network of British Council. In the 8/15/regional-winners-developercircles-community- coming months, we plan to expand our user base via a challenge/ series of online and offline events that are directed at the creative communities in India and later the UK to create

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