SIG on Designing for Constructive Conflict

ABSTRACT Online arguments are an increasingly important and controversial part of modern life. From the spread of political conspiracies to managing relationships while socially distanced, the past several years have stressed the role technology plays in our interactions with one another. And unavoidably, part of maintaining relationships includes managing conflict and disagreements, from who does which chores to who’s a better political candidate. This SIG will bring together an interdisciplinary group of designers and researchers to discuss how to design, build, and evaluate systems to support constructive arguments online. We ask: How can online systems support conflict while sustaining and possibly strengthening interpersonal relationships? We will explore these questions in the context of a collaborative literature review across fields relevant to social computing and the psychology of conflict, paired with group discussion on how to design for disagreements.