Users often struggle to make rational privacy decisions within the notice and choice framework, primarily due to difficulties in understanding and processing privacy policies. Recent studies suggest that large language model (LLM)-based chatbots can improve privacy policy comprehension and privacy awareness. Meanwhile, the specific expectations and needs that users bring to LLM-based chatbots for rational privacy decision-making, and whether those needs are met, have been underexplored. Employing a technology probe and focus groups, we investigate the roles users expect from the chatbots and the needs that arise during interaction. We further interview three experts to corroborate our findings. Our study reveals a typology of three user-expected roles for LLM-based chatbots—Interpreter, Guardian, and Evaluator—along with satisfied and unmet needs within these roles. Finally, we outline implications that clarify where LLMs are—and are not—viable in privacy decision-making, while highlighting structural limitations of notice and choice.

Environmental sustainability is increasingly important, and actions on “digital sustainability” are expanding to reduce energy consumption from digital infrastructures. As many digital services today have extensive user bases, exploring sustainable design features holds significant potential for reducing environmental impact. However, further exploration of foundational research is still necessary to enable broader and more effective adoption of digital sustainability in design practice. This study focuses on understanding important considerations when encouraging more designers, especially those with limited expertise in sustainability-oriented design, to integrate sustainable practices into digital services—acknowledging that embracing unfamiliar approaches presents natural challenges. We conducted design workshops and debriefing interviews with user experience (UX) designers unfamiliar with design for sustainability to explore their early encounters with sustainable interaction design (SID) in the context of digital infrastructure energy reduction. Our study provides insight into designers’ initial perceptions and challenges with sustainable design and discusses opportunities for their broader engagement.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shifted many business activities to non-face-to-face activities, and videoconferencing has become a new paradigm. However, conference spaces isolated from surrounding interferences are not always readily available. People frequently participate in public places with unexpected crowds or acquaintances, such as cafés, living rooms, and shared offices. These environments have surrounding limitations that potentially cause challenges in speaking up during videoconferencing. To alleviate these issues and support the users in speaking-restrained spatial contexts, we propose a text-to-speech (TTS) speaking tool as a new speaking method to support active videoconferencing participation. We derived the possibility of a TTS speaking tool and investigated the empirical challenges and user expectations of a TTS speaking tool using a technology probe and participatory design methodology. Based on our findings, we discuss the need for a TTS speaking tool and suggest design considerations for its application in videoconferencing.