Designing for Transient Use: A Human-in-the-loop Translation Platform for Refugees

Refugees undergoing resettlement in a new country post exile and migration face disruptive life changes. They rely on a network of individuals in the host country to help them rebuild their lives and livelihoods. We investigated whether technology could contribute to minimizing the vulnerabilities resettling refugees face. We designed Rivrtran, a messaging platform that provides 'human-in-the-loop' interpretation between individuals who don't share a common language. We report the findings from the deployment of Rivrtran to mediate communication between resettling refugee families in the United States and the American families they are paired with who serve as their mentors. Our findings suggest that scaffolding communication in such a way provides refugees one means of accessing diversified help outside their cultural group. Moreover human-in-the-loop interpretation may help to mitigate the effects of cultural barriers between those communicating. We establish the notion of designing for transient use in the development of systems to scaffold communication for short-term use by resettling refugees.