Chatbot Research
Projects
Social Cues in Human-Chatbot Interaction
Most chatbots and other types of digital assistants are given a name, are represented by a human-looking avatar, or are endowed with a personality. As a result, users often treat them like human beings and build social relationships with them. To better understand why and how these phenomena occur, this project investigates different designs of social cues and their effect on user perception and behavior. [Read more]
Self-Disclosure of Human-AI Hybrids
Today, many chatbots are implemented as human-AI hybrids that combine automation with a “human in the loop” approach. However, most hybrid chatbots do not disclose their true hybrid identity to customers or when the conversation is taken over by a human agent. This project aims to shed light on how self-disclosure affects customers and provider outcomes. [Read more]
Chatbot Engineering Support
There is limited design knowledge and tool support that guides chatbot engineers to design social chatbots. To address this challenge, we follow a design science research approach and investigates design principles that should guide the effective and efficient development of social chatbots. [Read more]
Survey Chatbots in Mental Health Screenings
The assessment of psychological symptoms (e.g., depression, anxiety, stress) using screening questionnaires can be done via several modalities. While chatbots are seen as a promising alternative to traditional modalities, it is unclear how patients’ responses to chatbots would differ from other well-established modalities. Therefore, this project investigates how survey chatbots affect social desirability response bias in the context of mental health screenings. [Read more]
Affective Chatbots for Workplace Collaboration
In the last years affective technologies have become more advanced and innovative. They allow for detailed and better understanding of human emotions by machines.These advances in affective computing have given rise to new abilities for chatbots to evolve from machine-like entities into partners for humans. With emotional cabapilites, such systems serve as potential emotional managers within team collaboration. [Read more]
Trustworthy Chatbots
In recent years, many public and private organizations are starting discussions about the moral and ethical perspective on technological advancements of artificial intelligence (AI). We investigate the design and effect of anthropomorphic capabilities of both, text- and speech-based chatbots, especially, social cues and the emotional capabilities of Affective Chatbots. We take this call to action and investigate how to design chatbots so that they support the users but do not harm anyone. At the same time they should create benefits for the community. [Read more]
Partners
In our research, we collaborate with a strong network of national and international partners from academia and industry. We aim to bring together different people with different skill sets and expertise to engage in innovative research projects and to strengthen the exchange between research and practice. Our partnerships can take various forms, including project-based collaboration, research scholarships, and publicly funded projects.
Our Academic Partners
Our Industry Partners
Publications
2020
- Benke, I. (2020). “Towards Design Principles for Trustworthy Affective Chatbots for Virtual Teams” in Proceedings of the 28th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2020), Marrakech, Morocco. [ResearchGate Link] [Publisher Link]
- Gnewuch, U., Meng, Y., and Maedche, A. (2020). “The Effect of Perceived Similarity in Dominance on Customer Self-Disclosure to Chatbots in Conversational Commerce” in Proceedings of the 28th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2020), Marrakech, Morocco. [ResearchGate Link] [Publisher Link]
- Morana, S., Gnewuch, U., Jung, D., and Granig, C. (2020). “The Effect of Anthropomorphism on Investment Decision-Making with Robo-Advisor Chatbots” in Proceedings of the 28th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2020), Marrakech, Morocco. [ResearchGate Link] [Publisher Link]
- Feine, J., Gnewuch U., Morana S., and Maedche A. (2020). “Gender Bias in Chatbot Design”. In: Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on Chatbot Research (CONVERSATIONS 2019). Amsterdam, Netherlands. [ResearchGate Link] [Publisher Link]
- Gnewuch U., Feine J., Morana S., Maedche A. (2020). “Soziotechnische Gestaltung von Chatbots”. In: Portmann E., D’Onofrio S. (eds) Cognitive Computing. Edition Informatik Spektrum. Springer Vieweg, Wiesbaden. [ResearchGate Link] [Publisher Link]
2019
- Feine, J., Gnewuch U., Morana S., and Maedche A. (2019). “A Taxonomy of Social Cues for Conversational Agents”. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies (132), pp. 138-161. [ResearchGate Link] [Publisher Link]
- André, E., Bayer, S., Benke, I., Benlian, A., Cummins, N., Gimpel, H., Hinz, O., Kersting, K., Mädche, A., Mühlhäuser, M., Riemann, J., Schuller, B. W., Weber, K. (2019). “Humane Anthropomorphic Agents: The Quest for the Outcome Measure”. In: Proceedings of the 2019 AIS SIGPrag Pre-ICIS Workshop on “Values and Ethics in the Digital Age”. Munich, Germany. [Link]
- Feine, J., Morana S., and Maedche A. (2019). “Designing a Chatbot Social Cue Configuration System”. In: Proceedings of the 40th International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2019). Munich, Germany. [ResearchGate Link]
- Diederich, S.; Janßen-Müller, M.; Brendel, A.B.; Morana, S. (2019). “Emulating Empathetic Behavior in Online Service Encounters with Sentiment-Adaptive Responses: Insights from an Experiment with a Conversational Agent”. In: Proceedings of the 40th International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2019). Munich, Germany. [ResearchGate Link]
- Feine, J., Morana, S., and Maedche, A. (2019). “Leveraging Machine-Executable Descriptive Knowledge in Design Science Research – The Case of Designing Socially-Adaptive Chatbots”. In: Extending the Boundaries of Design Science Theory and Practice. Ed. by B. Tulu, S. Djamasbi, G. Leroy. Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 76–91. [ResearchGate Link] [Publisher Link]
- Feine, J., Morana, S., and Gnewuch, U. 2019. “Measuring Service Encounter Satisfaction with Customer Service Chatbots using Sentiment Analysis,” in Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Wirtschaftsinformatik (WI 2019), Siegen, Germany, February 24–27. [ResearchGate Link] [Publisher Link]
- Rietz, T., Benke, I. and Maedche, A. 2019. “The Impact of Anthropomorphic and Functional Chatbot Design Features in Enterprise Collaboration Systems on User Acceptance,” in Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Wirtschaftsinformatik (WI 2019), Siegen, Germany, February 24–27. [ResearchGate Link] [Publisher Link]
- Gnewuch, U., Heckmann, C., Morana, S., and Maedche, A. 2019. “Designing and Implementing a B2B Chatbot: Insights from a Medium-Sized Service Provider in the Energy Industry,” in Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Wirtschaftsinformatik (WI 2019). Industry Papers., Siegen, Germany, February 24–27. [Link]
2018
- Gnewuch, U., Morana, S., Adam, M. T. P., and Maedche, A. 2018. “‘The Chatbot is typing …’ – The Role of Typing Indicators in Human-Chatbot Interaction,” in Proceedings of the 17th Annual Pre-ICIS Workshop on HCI Research in MIS, San Francisco, CA, December 13, 2018. [ResearchGate Link]
- Gnewuch, U., Morana, S., Adam, M. T. P., and Maedche, A. 2018. “Faster Is Not Always Better: Understanding the Effect of Dynamic Response Delays in Human-Chatbot Interaction,” in Proceedings of the 26th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2018), Portsmouth, United Kingdom. [ResearchGate Link] [Publisher Link]
- Gnewuch, U., Morana, S., Heckmann, C., and Maedche, A. 2018. “Designing Conversational Agents for Energy Feedback,” in Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Design Science Research in Information Systems and Technology (DESRIST 2018), Chennai, India. [ResearchGate Link] [Publisher Link]
2017
- Gnewuch, U., Morana, S., and Maedche, A. 2017. “Towards Designing Cooperative and Social Conversational Agents for Customer Service,” in Proceedings of the 38th International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2017), Seoul, South Korea. [ResearchGate Link] [Publisher Link]
- Morana, S., Friemel, C., Gnewuch, U., Maedche, A., and Pfeiffer, J. 2017. “Interaktion Mit Smarten Systemen — Aktueller Stand Und Zukünftige Entwicklungen Im Bereich Der Nutzerassistenz,” Wirtschaftsinformatik & Management (9:5), pp. 42–51. [ResearchGate Link] [Publisher Link]
Events & Talks
ECIS 2020
The entire Chatbot Research team attended the virtual European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2020). We presented three papers: “The Effect of Perceived Similarity in Dominance on Customer Self-Disclosure to Chatbots in Conversational Commerce”, “Towards Design Principles for Trustworthy Affective Chatbots for Virtual Teams”, and “We see we disagree: Insights from Designing a Cooperative Requirements Prioritization System”.
E-world energy & water 2020
Together with our industry partner hsag Heidelberger Services AG, Ulrich attended the E-world energy & water 2020 in Essen, Germany, where he showcased our research and presented our findings to product managers and decision makers in the energy industry.
ICIS 2019
The entire Chatbot Research team attended the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2019) in Munich. We participated in several workshops and Jasper presented our paper on “Designing a Chatbot Social Cue Configuration System”.
Chatbot Summit 2019
Ulrich gave a presentation about our research on the design of chatbots at this year’s Chatbot Summit in Berlin. He shared insights on why chatbots are perceived as human(-like) and how this phenomenon affects user interaction and behavior.
CONVERSATIONS 2019
Our research group participated at CONVERSATIONS 2019, the 3rd International Workshop On Chatbot Research in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Ulrich Gnewuch and Jasper Feine presented the accepted full paper “Gender Bias in Chatbot Design” and had a great exchange with fellow chatbot researchers from all around Europe.
Research Talk at University of Göttingen
Stefan presented selected research projects in an invited research talk at the University of Göttingen. Prof. Manuel Trenz invited us to share our insights on the design of chatbots in their e-commerce lecture.
tekom Jahrestagung 2019
The annual tekom conference took place in Stuttgart this year. Stefan was invited to present our findings on the design of chatbots at the Arena UX of the conference.
Research Talk at the University of St. Gallen
Stefan presented selected research projects in an invited research talk at the University of St. Gallen. The research groups of Prof. Matthias Söllner and Prof. Dr. Jan Marco Leimeister invited us to share our insights on the design of the human-chatbot interaction.
User Assistance Reloaded 2019
Stefan presented selected research results of the research group at the 2019 SAP User Assistance Reloaded conference. In this talk, he specifically emphasized the importance human-chatbot interaction design.
WI 2019
Our research group participated at International Conference on Wirtschaftsinformatik (WI) 2019 in Siegen, Germany. We presented two papers: “Measuring Service Encounter Satisfaction with Customer Service Chatbots using Sentiment Analysis” and “The Impact of Anthropomorphic and Functional Chatbot Design Features in Enterprise Collaboration Systems on User Acceptance” and Prof. Mädche led a panel discussion on “AI-based Digital Assistants – Opportunities and Risks.
SAP UX Day 2019
The Institute of Information Systems and Marketing (IISM) presented contemporary chatbot research at a dedicated booth at the SAP UX Day. The SAP UX Day is organized by SAP once a year and took place on February 19th 2019 at ZKM. The SAP UX Day is an SAP-internal event, selected parterns and customers are invited. The event attracted approx. 800 participants.
E-world energy & water 2019
Together with his industry partner hsag Heidelberger Services AG, Ulrich attended the E-world energy & water 2019 in Essen, Germany, where he showcased our research and findings to product managers and decision makers in the energy industry.
2018
ICIS 2018
Our research group attended the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2018) in San Francisco, USA. Ulrich presented our paper on “The Chatbot is typing… – The Role of Typing Indicators in Human-Chatbot Interaction” at the SIG-HCI Workshop and Stefan gave a talk on “AI-Enabled User Assistance: Designing Human-Intelligent System Cooperation”.
ASEW Seminar “Digital Customer Interaction”
As part of a seminar on “Digital Customer Interaction” organized by ASEW, a network for public utility companies in Germany, Ulrich gave a presentation on opportunities and challenges of customer service chatbots for energy companies.
UX Day 2018
The User Experience Day took place on October 11th 2018 in Mannheim and attracted 450 participants. Prof. Maedche was co-organizer of the UX Day . Stefan presented our work in the field of chatbots.
DMEXCO 2018
At DMEXCO 2018 (Digital Marketing EXposition & COnference) in Cologne, Germany, Jasper presented two chatbots which were developed jointly with sogedes.digital. More information can be found here.
ECIS 2018
Stefan and Ulrich attended the European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2018) in Portsmouth, UK and presented our paper on “Faster is Not Always Better: Understanding the Effect of Dynamic Response Delays in Human-Chatbot Interaction”.
UX Quick & Dirty Meetup
Ulrich gave a talk on “Designing Social Cues for Conversational Agents” at the UX Quick-and-Dirty Meetup in Karlsruhe, Germany.
2017
ICIS 2017
Stefan and Ulrich attended the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2017) in Seoul, South Korea and presented our paper on “Towards Designing Cooperative and Social Conversational Agents for Customer Service”.
BEMD Jahreskongress 2017
Prof. Maedche was the keynote speaker at the BEMD Jahreskongress in Dortmund, Germany. In his keynote, he also presented our research on the design of chatbots to decision makers in the energy industry.
Our Team
Ulrich
Gnewuch
Postdoctoral Researcher
Stefan
Morana
Junior Professor
Jasper
Feine
Doctoral Researcher
Ivo
Benke
Doctoral Researcher
Tim
Rietz
Doctoral Researcher
Marcel
Ruoff
Doctoral Researcher
Melanie
Schulz
Junior Researcher
Alexander Maedche
Professor and Head of Research Group
Contact Us
Contact us
Chatbot Research
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)
Institute of Information Systems and Marketing (IISM)
Research Group Information Systems and Service Design
Email: info@chatbotresearch.org
Kaiserstraße 89-93
76133 Karlsruhe
Germany