Interactive Fiction Provotypes for Coping with Interpersonal Racism

Reducing uncertainty around the nature of racist interactions is one of the key motivations driving individual behaviors for coping with those incidents. However, there are few appropriate technologies to support BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) in engaging in social uncertainty reduction around this vulnerable, sensitive topic. This paper reports on an exploratory design study investigating how social technology might facilitate uncertainty reduction through three “provotypes” - provocative prototypes of user-generated speculative design concepts. U.S.-based participants engaged with the provotypes through an interactive fiction to explore their usefulness in the context of a racist microaggression. Results showed that engaging the provotypes through interactive fiction facilitated complex and productive interactions and critiques. This work contributes a novel method for conducting exploratory design, remote user studies using interactive fiction as well as priorities, tensions, and further information what role, if any, technology might play in managing racist interactions.