A Not So Chatty “Chatbot”: Co-designing to support First-Time Parents in South Africa and Portugal
Authors: 
Leina Meoli, 
Francisco Nunes, Beatriz Félix, Joana Couto da Silva, Xolani Ntinga, 
Melissa DensmoreAuthors Info & Claims
Article No.: 30, Pages 1 - 8
Abstract
Innovations in chatbot technology have greatly accelerated in recent years, yet challenges persist in implementing them effectively for healthcare in diverse socio-economic contexts, especially in the global south. We engaged in two sets of co-design workshops that gave insight into the preferences of parents regarding chatbot design modalities but also uncovered constraints for our design including working with low-resource languages and limited internet connectivity. Though we set out for a chatbot to support first-time parents, our co-design in Portugal and South Africa resulted in the development of a "not-so-chatty" chatbot. Our intervention, ParentCoach App, is a question-and-answer informational resource presented in a chat-like user interface with search and menus for content exploration. We discuss the challenges of designing and implementing chatbots across different geographic and socio-economic contexts, presenting our resulting intervention and the preliminary findings from a two-week feasibility pilot with first-time parents in the two countries.
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Index Terms
- A Not So Chatty “Chatbot”: Co-designing to support First-Time Parents in South Africa and Portugal
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July 2024
616 pages
ISBN:9798400705113
DOI:10.1145/3640794
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Published: 08 July 2024
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