Conversational Agents That Don’t Pretend to Care: Co-Designing Mediator Roles in Digital Healthcare Interventions

Women with female-specific cancers can now survive decades after diagnosis, however there is little support after treatment despite the risk of physical and psychosocial complications. Targeted lifestyle management can improve quality of life and reduce treatment related chronic disease risks in these women. Conversational agents (CAs) have the potential to amplify the reach and benefits of such programs for both women diagnosed with cancer and the cancer nurse specialists who deliver the service. However, there is limited guidance on creating CA roles when they act as mediators facilitating self-directed healthcare interventions between these two user groups. Direct input from female cancer patients and cancer nurse specialists on preferred CA mediator roles could increase their acceptance of and engagement with such technologies in actual use. To investigate alternative mediator roles that CAs might play in healthcare interventions, we conducted three co-design workshops with nine female cancer patients and four cancer nurse specialists. All participants had previously participated in a healthcare intervention program, ensuring that lived challenges and needs informed insights into the design. By designing and discussing possible mediator roles, via creating fictional stories, we identified participants’ preferred characteristics for CA mediator roles and outlined considerations and expectations when designing them as the technology advances.