Exploring Emotions in Avatar Design to Increase Adherence to Chatbot Technology

A mock-up of a simulated e-commerce platform was used to evaluate the intentions to start the interaction with a chatbot during a system failure. The participants (N = 60) that volunteered to evaluate the platform's usability were not aware that the chatbot's design was the object of study. They were randomly assigned to one of the two experimental groups created based on the emotions expressed by the chatbots' avatars (e.g., sad vs. humoristic) and were asked to buy a certain product as quickly as possible, under the pretext of an upcoming promotion. The purchasing processwas suddenly interrupted by a system crash followed by an errormessage. Participants had three options: repeat the process, ask the chatbot for help, or give up the purchase. The decision to interact (yes/no) with the chatbot was the main dependent variable. Affective response to the chatbot-avatar was assessed with the Affective Slider and User Experience (UX) of the platform with the Attrakdiff questionnaire. The results suggest that the presence of an avatar tends to increase the intention to interact with the chatbot and that the inclusion of emotional expression has a significantly positive impact on adherence to chatbot technology, with greater strength in the case of humoristic expression compared to sadness. However, these differences do not seem to have been enough to affect UX. Overall, considering the various results obtained, this study supports the use of avatars to initiate interaction with chatbots and points out advantages in the use of emotional design strategies, namely humour.