Navigating Transitions: Envisioning Conversational User Interfaces to Support International Students
For researchers and designers of CUIs, this paper provides design implications for supporting international students' well-being, though it is an early-stage, qualitative study.
The paper explores how conversational user interfaces (CUIs) can support international students' transition to a host country, identifying needs such as addressing uncertainty, loneliness, and cultural misunderstandings through participatory design workshops.
International students face struggles when adapting to the host country. They are more susceptible to mental health problems than domestic students. While Conversational User Interfaces (CUIs) are increasingly researched and implemented, research on how they may help international university students is still scarce. Thus, we conducted participatory design workshops with international students who shared their perspectives and struggles of studying abroad, in which they also envisioned CUIs as aids to support their transitions. Participants proposed features of a CUI to address uncertainty, loneliness, and misunderstandings of cultural differences. Our paper reveals international students' needs and provides design implications for CUIs to support their well-being.