Conference Paper2022Cited by 1

Early Usability Evaluation of a Relational Agent for the COVID-19 Pandemic

Ashraful Islam, Beenish Moalla Chaudhry

The Adjunct Publication of the 35th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology

ACM, pp. 1–3

  • Good Health and Well-being — Relevance: 83%
DOI: 10.1145/3526114.3558702URL

Abstract

Relational agents (RAs) have shown effectiveness in various health interventions with and without healthcare professionals (HCPs) and hospital facilities. RAs have not been widely researched in COVID-19 context, although they can give health interventions during the pandemic. Addressing this gap, this work presents an early usability evaluation of a prototypical RA, which is iteratively designed and developed in collaboration with infected patients (n=21) and two groups of HCPs (n=19, n=16) to aid COVID-19 patients at various stages about four main tasks: testing guidance, support during self-isolation, handling emergency situations, and promoting post-infection mental well-being. The prototype obtained an average score of 58.82 on the system usability scale (SUS) after being evaluated by 98 people. This result implies that the suggested design still needs to be improved for greater usability and adoption.

Keywords

  • relational agents
  • usability evaluation
  • COVID-19 pandemic
  • psychological well-being
  • healthcare workers
  • System usability scale
  • health interventions

CCDS Authors

Ashraful Islam, PhD
Ashraful Islam

Ashraful Islam, PhD

  • Center Director, CCDS
  • Director, HCI Wing

Assistant Professor

Department of Computer Science and Engineering

Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB)

Published at

CHI, UIST, UbiComp, IJCNN, ICIP, HCII, ICDMW, BLP, IEEE Internet of Things Journal, JMIR, JMIR Human Factors, JMIR Formative Research, IEEE Access, Smart Agricultural Technology, Diabetes Research and Clinical Practice, PLOS ONE

Research Interests

Human-Computer Interaction, AI for Social Good, AI for Public Health, AI for Impact

Beenish Moalla Chaudhry, PhD
Beenish Moalla Chaudhry, PhD

Beenish Moalla Chaudhry, PhD

  • Collaborator, HCI Wing

Associate Professor

School of Computing and Informatics

University of Louisiana at Lafayette

Published at

UIST, HCII, JMIR Human Factors, JMIR Formative Research

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Cited By

  1. 1.João Pavão, Rute Bastardo, Anabela Gonçalves Silva, Nelson Pacheco Rocha. (2026). Usability and User Experience Assessment of Health Care Conversational Agents Using Validated Subjective Instruments: Systematic Review and Comparative Analysis. JMIR Human Factors, 13, e102911[10.2196/102911]
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