First impressions: The importance of visual appearance in the design of conversational agents

Robert Heller, Mike Procter

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

Abstract

The growth of conversational agents in education continues to expand and there is a growing body of evidence on the importance of visual characteristics on the overall learning experience. This chapter provides a brief overview of research in this area drawing on the literature from embodied conversational agents, animated/virtual pedagogical agents and our own work with conversational agents as historical figures (CAHF). Four aspects of visual appearance are described (i.e., realism, faces, roles and visual style) along with a selected review of research within each aspect. More recent approaches are described that provide templates for visual design guidelines and while progress has been made, there is still a need for more systematic research on the visual elements that give rise to first impression as well as the interactions among elements.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationConversational Agents as Online Learning Tutors
Pages89-117
Number of pages29
ISBN (Electronic)9781536196030
Publication statusPublished - 27 Apr. 2021

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