Abstract
The growing adoption of emojis, stickers and GIFs suggests a corresponding demand for rich, personalized expression in messaging apps. Some people customize apps to enable more personal forms of expression, yet we know little about how such customizations shape everyday communication. Since people increasingly communicate via multiple apps side-by-side, we are also interested in how customizing one app influences communication via other apps. We created a taxonomy of customization options based on interviews with 15 "extreme users" of communication apps. We found that participants tailored their apps to express their identities, organizational culture, and intimate bonds with others. They also experienced expression breakdowns: frustrations around barriers to transferring personal forms of expression across apps, which inspired inventive workarounds to maintain cross-app habits of expression, such as briefly switching apps to generate and export content for a particular conversation. We conclude with implications for personalized expression in ecosystems of communication apps.
- Mark S. Ackerman. 2000. The Intellectual Challenge of CSCW: The Gap Between Social Requirements and Technical Feasibility. Hum.-Comput. Interact., Vol. 15, 2 (Sept. 2000), 179--203. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327051HCI1523_5Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Saeideh Bakhshi, David A. Shamma, Lyndon Kennedy, Yale Song, Paloma de Juan, and Joseph 'Jofish' Kaye. 2016. Fast, Cheap, and Good: Why Animated GIFs Engage Us. ACM Press, 575--586. https://doi.org/10.1145/2858036.2858532Google Scholar
- Elizabeth Bales, Kevin A. Li, and William Griwsold. 2011. CoupleVIBE: Mobile Implicit Communication to Improve Awareness for (Long-distance) Couples. In Proceedings of the ACM 2011 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW '11). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 65--74. https://doi.org/10.1145/1958824.1958835Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke. 2006. Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative research in psychology, Vol. 3, 2 (2006), 77--101.Google Scholar
- Andrea Bunt, Cristina Conati, and Joanna McGrenere. 2007. Supporting interface customization using a mixed-initiative approach. In Proceedings of the 12th international conference on Intelligent user interfaces. ACM, 92--101.Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Eun Kyoung Choe, Nicole B. Lee, Bongshin Lee, Wanda Pratt, and Julie A. Kientz. 2014. Understanding Quantified-selfers' Practices in Collecting and Exploring Personal Data. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '14). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1143--1152. https://doi.org/10.1145/2556288.2557372Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Josh Constine. 2019. To stop copycats, Snapchat shares itself. TechCrunch (Apr 2019). https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/07/rise-of-the-snapchat-empire/Google Scholar
- Henriette Cramer, Paloma de Juan, and Joel Tetreault. 2016. Sender-intended functions of emojis in US messaging. ACM Press, 504--509. https://doi.org/10.1145/2935334.2935370Google Scholar
- Henriette Cramer and Maia L. Jacobs. 2015. Couples' Communication Channels: What, When & Why?. In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '15). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 709--712. https://doi.org/10.1145/2702123.2702356Google Scholar
- Michael A. DeVito, Jeremy Birnholtz, and Jeffery T. Hancock. 2017. Platforms, People, and Perception: Using Affordances to Understand Self-Presentation on Social Media. In Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW '17). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 740--754. https://doi.org/10.1145/2998181.2998192Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Michael A. DeVito, Jeremy Birnholtz, Jeffery T. Hancock, Megan French, and Sunny Liu. 2018a. How People Form Folk Theories of Social Media Feeds and What It Means for How We Study Self-Presentation. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '18). ACM, New York, NY, USA, Article 120, 12 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3173694Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Michael A. DeVito, Ashley Marie Walker, and Jeremy Birnholtz. 2018b. 'Too Gay for Facebook': Presenting LGBTQGoogle Scholar
- Identity Throughout the Personal Social Media Ecosystem. Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact., Vol. 2, CSCW, Article 44 (Nov. 2018), 23 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3274313Google Scholar
Digital Library
- John Partomo Djajadiningrat, William W Gaver, and JW Fres. 2000. Interaction relabelling and extreme characters: methods for exploring aesthetic interactions. In Proceedings of the 3rd conference on Designing interactive systems: processes, practices, methods, and techniques. ACM, 66--71.Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Maeve Duggan and Nicole B Ellison. 2015. Social media update 2014. (2015).Google Scholar
- Jeff Dyck, David Pinelle, Barry AT Brown, and Carl Gutwin. 2003. Learning from Games: HCI Design Innovations in Entertainment Software.. In Graphics interface, Vol. 2003. Citeseer, 237--246.Google Scholar
- Leah Findlater and Joanna McGrenere. 2004. A comparison of static, adaptive, and adaptable menus. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems. ACM, 89--96.Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Leah Findlater, Joanna McGrenere, and David Modjeska. 2008. Evaluation of a role-based approach for customizing a complex development environment. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 1267--1270.Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Erving Goffman. 1959. The Presentation of Self in. Butler, Bodies that Matter (1959).Google Scholar
- Carla F. Griggio, Midas Nouwens, Joanna McGrenere, and Wendy E. Mackay. 2019. Augmenting Couples' Communication with Lifelines: Shared Timelines of Mixed Contextual Information. In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '19). ACM, New York, NY, USA, Article 623, 13 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300853Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Marc Hassenzahl, Stephanie Heidecker, Kai Eckoldt, Sarah Diefenbach, and Uwe Hillmann. 2012. All You Need is Love: Current Strategies of Mediating Intimate Relationships Through Technology. ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact., Vol. 19, 4, Article 30 (Dec. 2012), 19 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/2395131.2395137Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Mariam Hassib, Daniel Buschek, Pawel W. Wozniak, and Florian Alt. 2017. HeartChat: Heart Rate Augmented Mobile Chat to Support Empathy and Awareness. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '17). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2239--2251. https://doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3025758Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Caroline Haythornthwaite. 2005. Social networks and Internet connectivity effects. Information, Community & Society, Vol. 8, 2 (2005), 125--147.Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Jialun Jiang, Casey Fiesler, and Jed R Brubaker. 2018. 'The Perfect One': Understanding Communication Practices and Challenges with Animated GIFs. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, Vol. 2, CSCW (2018), 80.Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Helge Kahler. 2001. More Than WORDs - Collaborative Tailoring of a Word Processor. Journal of Universal Computer Science, Vol. 7, 8 (2001), 826--847.Google Scholar
- Ryan Kelly, Daniel Gooch, Bhagyashree Patil, and Leon Watts. 2017. Demanding by design: Supporting effortful communication practices in close personal relationships. In Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing. ACM, 70--83.Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Ryan Kelly, Daniel Gooch, and Leon Watts. 2018. 'It's More Like a Letter': An Exploration of Mediated Conversational Effort in Message Builder. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, Vol. 2, CSCW (2018), 87.Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Ryan Kelly and Leon Watts. 2015. Characterising the inventive appropriation of emoji as relationally meaningful in mediated close personal relationships. Experiences of Technology Appropriation: Unanticipated Users, Usage, Circumstances, and Design (2015).Google Scholar
- Lorenz Cuno Klopfenstein, Saverio Delpriori, Silvia Malatini, and Alessandro Bogliolo. 2017. The rise of bots: A survey of conversational interfaces, patterns, and paradigms. In Proceedings of the 2017 Conference on Designing Interactive Systems. ACM, 555--565.Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Joon Young Lee, Nahi Hong, Soomin Kim, Jonghwan Oh, and Joonhwan Lee. 2016. Smiley face: why we use emoticon stickers in mobile messaging. ACM Press, 760--766. https://doi.org/10.1145/2957265.2961858Google Scholar
- Christian Licoppe. 2004. `Connected' presence: The emergence of a new repertoire for managing social relationships in a changing communication technoscape. Environment and planning D: Society and space, Vol. 22, 1 (2004), 135--156.Google Scholar
- Wendy E Mackay. 1990. Users and customizable software: A co-adaptive phenomenon. Ph.D. Dissertation. Citeseer.Google Scholar
- Wendy E Mackay. 1991. Triggers and barriers to customizing software. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems. ACM, 153--160.Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Wendy E Mackay. 2000. Responding to cognitive overload: Co-adaptation between users and technology. Intellectica, Vol. 30, 1 (2000), 177--193.Google Scholar
- Joanna McGrenere, Ronald M Baecker, and Kellogg S Booth. 2007. A field evaluation of an adaptable two-interface design for feature-rich software. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), Vol. 14, 1 (2007), 3.Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Sarah McRoberts, Haiwei Ma, Andrew Hall, and Svetlana Yarosh. 2017. Share First, Save Later: Performance of Self through Snapchat Stories. ACM Press, 6902--6911. https://doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3025771Google Scholar
- Hannah Miller, Jacob Thebault-Spieker, Shuo Chang, Isaac Johnson, Loren Terveen, and Brent Hecht. 2016. Blissfully happy" or "ready to fight": Varying Interpretations of Emoji. Proceedings of ICWSM, Vol. 2016 (2016).Google Scholar
- Hannah Miller Hillberg, Zachary Levonian, Daniel Kluver, Loren Terveen, and Brent Hecht. 2018. What I See is What You Don'T Get: The Effects of (Not) Seeing Emoji Rendering Differences Across Platforms. Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact., Vol. 2, CSCW, Article 124 (Nov. 2018), 24 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3274393Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Kate M. Miltner and Tim Highfield. 2017. Never gonna GIF you up: Analyzing the cultural significance of the animated GIF. Social Media+Society, Vol. 3, 3 (2017), 2056305117725223.Google Scholar
- Katie Moon and Deborah Blackman. 2014. A guide to understanding social science research for natural scientists. Conservation Biology, Vol. 28, 5 (2014), 1167--1177.Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Bonnie A. Nardi, Steve Whittaker, and Erin Bradner. 2000. Interaction and Outeraction: Instant Messaging in Action. In Proceedings of the 2000 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW '00). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 79--88. https://doi.org/10.1145/358916.358975Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Midas Nouwens, Carla F Griggio, and Wendy E Mackay. 2017. WhatsApp is for family; Messenger is for friends: Communication Places in App Ecosystems. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 727--735.Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Kenton P. O'Hara, Michael Massimi, Richard Harper, Simon Rubens, and Jessica Morris. 2014. Everyday Dwelling with WhatsApp. In Proceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (CSCW '14). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1131--1143. https://doi.org/10.1145/2531602.2531679Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Antti Oulasvirta and Jan Blom. 2008. Motivations in Personalisation Behaviour. Interact. Comput., Vol. 20, 1 (Jan. 2008), 1--16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intcom.2007.06.002Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Stanley R Page, Todd J Johnsgard, Uhl Albert, and C Dennis Allen. 1996. User customization of a word processor. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 340--346.Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Jaram Park, Vladimir Barash, Clay Fink, and Meeyoung Cha. 2013. Emoticon Style: Interpreting Differences in Emoticons Across Cultures.. In Icwsm .Google Scholar
- Matthias Peissner and Rob Edlin-White. 2013. User control in adaptive user interfaces for accessibility. In IFIP Conference on Human-Computer Interaction. Springer, 623--640.Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Lauren E. Scissors and Darren Gergle. 2013. "Back and Forth, Back and Forth": Channel Switching in Romantic Couple Conflict. In Proceedings of the 2013 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW '13). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 237--248. https://doi.org/10.1145/2441776.2441804Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Manya Sleeper, William Melicher, Hana Habib, Lujo Bauer, Lorrie Faith Cranor, and Michelle L. Mazurek. 2016. Sharing personal content online: Exploring channel choice and multi-channel behaviors. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI conference on human factors in computing systems. ACM, 101--112.Google Scholar
- Aaron Smith and Monica Anderson. 2018. Social media use in 2018. Pew research center (2018).Google Scholar
- Olli Sotamaa. 2010. When the game is not enough: Motivations and practices among computer game modding culture. Games and Culture, Vol. 5, 3 (2010), 239--255.Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Frederic Stutzman, Jessica Vitak, Nicole B Ellison, Rebecca Gray, and Cliff Lampe. 2012. Privacy in Interaction: Exploring Disclosure and Social Capital in Facebook.. In ICWSM .Google Scholar
- Satomi Sugiyama. 2015. Kawaii meiru and Maroyaka neko : Mobile emoji for relationship maintenance and aesthetic expressions among Japanese teens. First Monday, Vol. 20, 10 (2015). https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v20i10.5826Google Scholar
- Aurélien Tabard, Wendy Mackay, Nicolas Roussel, and Catherine Letondal. 2007. Pagelinker: integrating contextual bookmarks within a browser. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems. ACM, 337--346.Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Lee Taber and Steve Whittaker. 2018. Personality Depends on The Medium: Differences in Self-Perception on Snapchat, Facebook and Offline. ACM Press, 1--13. https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3174181Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Garreth W. Tigwell and David R. Flatla. 2016. Oh That's What You Meant!: Reducing Emoji Misunderstanding. In Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services Adjunct (MobileHCI '16). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 859--866. https://doi.org/10.1145/2957265.2961844Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Jackson Tolins and Patrawat Samermit. 2016. GIFs as Embodied Enactments in Text-Mediated Conversation. Research on Language and Social Interaction, Vol. 49, 2 (April 2016), 75--91. https://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.2016.1164391Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Emily Troshynski, Charlotte Lee, and Paul Dourish. 2011. Accountabilities of presence: reframing location-based systems. Droit et cultures. Revue internationale interdisciplinaire 61 (2011), 171--193.Google Scholar
- Zeynep Tufekci. 2008. Can you see me now? Audience and disclosure regulation in online social network sites. Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, Vol. 28, 1 (2008), 20--36.Google Scholar
- Francesco Vitale, Izabelle Janzen, and Joanna McGrenere. 2018. Hoarding and Minimalism: Tendencies in Digital Data Preservation. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '18). ACM, New York, NY, USA, Article 587, 12 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3174161Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Joseph B Walther. 1996. Computer-mediated communication: Impersonal, interpersonal, and hyperpersonal interaction. Communication research, Vol. 23, 1 (1996), 3--43.Google Scholar
- Daricia Wilkinson, Moses Namara, Karla Badillo-Urquiola, Pamela J. Wisniewski, Bart P. Knijnenburg, Xinru Page, Eran Toch, and Jen Romano-Bergstrom. 2018. Moving Beyond a "One-size Fits All": Exploring Individual Differences in Privacy. In Extended Abstracts of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '18). ACM, New York, NY, USA, Article W16, 8 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3170427.3170617Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Terry Winograd and Fernando Flores. 1987. On understanding computers and cognition: A new foundation for design: A response to the reviews .Elsevier.Google Scholar
- Sarah Wiseman and Sandy J. J. Gould. 2018. Repurposing Emoji for Personalised Communication: Why Pizza Means “I Love You”. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '18). ACM, New York, NY, USA, Article 152, 10 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3173726Google Scholar
- Nick Yee, Nicolas Ducheneaut, Les Nelson, and Peter Likarish. 2011. Introverted elves & conscientious gnomes: the expression of personality in world of warcraft. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 753--762.Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Amy X Zhang and Justin Cranshaw. 2018. Making sense of group chat through collaborative tagging and summarization. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, Vol. 2, CSCW (2018), 196.Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Xuan Zhao, Cliff Lampe, and Nicole B. Ellison. 2016. The Social Media Ecology: User Perceptions, Strategies and Challenges. ACM Press, 89--100. https://doi.org/10.1145/2858036.2858333Google Scholar
- Rui Zhou, Jasmine Hentschel, and Neha Kumar. 2017. Goodbye Text, Hello Emoji: Mobile Communication on WeChat in China. ACM Press, 748--759. https://doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3025800Google Scholar
Index Terms
Customizations and Expression Breakdowns in Ecosystems of Communication Apps
Recommendations
"WhatsApp is for family; Messenger is for friends": Communication Places in App Ecosystems
CHI '17: Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsToday's users communicate via multiple apps, even when they offer almost identical functionality. We studied how and why users distribute their contacts within their app ecosystem. We found that the contacts in an app affect a user's conversations with ...
Mediating Intimacy with DearBoard: a Co-Customizable Keyboard for Everyday Messaging
CHI '21: Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsCo-customizations are collaborative customizations in messaging apps that all conversation members can view and change, e.g. the color of chat bubbles on Facebook Messenger. Co-customizations grant new opportunities for expressing intimacy; however, ...
Caught in the Network: The Impact of WhatsApp’s 2021 Privacy Policy Update on Users’ Messaging App Ecosystems
CHI '22: Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsIn January 2021, WhatsApp announced an update to their privacy policy, sparking an outcry that saw millions of users install other messaging apps such as Telegram and Signal. This presented a rare opportunity to study users’ experiences when trying to ...






Comments