Keynote Speakers

When Wanting the Same Thing Isn’t Enough

Every day, people try to support one another in families, communities, workplaces, and increasingly through technology. Yet good intentions alone rarely lead to meaningful coordination. People often want to help, yet help is not accepted. Sometimes people hide their struggles, and others never realize coordination is needed. Sometimes people share the very same goal, yet still fail to coordinate because they simply do not know how to begin.

Over the past two decades, I have encountered this same phenomenon in seemingly unrelated contexts, including multilingual communication, family caregiving, AI-mediated interaction, and in myself. We often assume that if people share information, they will understand one another. If they share goals, they will coordinate. If they participate, collaboration will naturally follow. My experience suggests that these assumptions are not enough. What often matters most is the manner of adjustment itself. A poor one can quietly wear away the very willingness and ability that coordination depends on. Through stories of both successful and failed design interventions, I hope to explore with the audience what else may be needed for people to align with one another, and what this might mean for designing technologies in an increasingly AI-mediated world.