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Can we trust our health in the hands of chatbots? : An exploratory study investigating the effect of anthropomorphic design of e-Health chatbots on patients UX.

Petrova, Viktoriya (2020) Can we trust our health in the hands of chatbots? : An exploratory study investigating the effect of anthropomorphic design of e-Health chatbots on patients UX.

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Abstract:The future of healthcare requires patients to become more autonomous and take actions into their own hands. Chatbots have been around for some time now, and since 2014 developers have been trying to integrate them as part of hospital e-Health systems. Medical chatbots have the potential to benefit both patients and doctors, by reducing workload and improving the chances of giving accurate diagnosis. Most empirical researches investigate the effect of chatbot design characteristics on the user experience (UX) in e-commerce, and not in a medical context. The present study uses a 2x2 research design to investigate how anthropomorphic visual and language cues affect patients’ trust, perceived intelligence, satisfaction and willingness to use. To explore the extent to which these characteristics influence users’ perceptions, each of the participants were presented with one of four videos that was designed to have either human avatar, or logo, and human language, or robot language. The study was conducted online and collected in total 120 responses. Due to the nature of the study there were no strict limitations regarding the target group, the age varied between 18 – 25 years old, and mostly included Bulgarian, Dutch and German participants. Based on the literature analysis conducted prior to the main study, it was expected that the chatbot, which integrated anthropomorphic characteristics would result in better overall UX. The results justify this assumption when it comes to implementing language cues. Furthermore it is confirmed that there is a positive effect of human avatar on the patiest trust. Nonetheless, this study can serve a number of practical and theoretical implications in the field of medical chatbot design. It provides arguments and demonstrates how anthropomorphic design improves UX, and enables technological acceptance and adoption.
Item Type:Essay (Bachelor)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:05 communication studies, 70 social sciences in general
Programme:Communication Studies BSc (56615)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/81683
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