Conversational agents: a survey on culturally informed design practices

Mateus de Souza Monteiro; Luciana Cardoso de Castro Salgado

doi:10.5753/jis.2023.2961

Authors

Mateus de Souza Monteiro Universidade Federal Fluminense https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4502-4319
Luciana Cardoso de Castro Salgado Universidade Federal Fluminense https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1207-6021

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5753/jis.2023.2961

Keywords:

Systematic review, Culture, Design, Interaction, Conversational agent

Abstract

The development and use of conversational agents grow every day. However, those systems still need to meet users' expectations. As a result, new design practices for conversational agents are emerging. One facet is the culturally informed design of those systems. Tailoring conversational agents culturally can increase engagement, trustworthiness, and acceptance. While an emerging trend, literature still needs to discuss research and application of design practices related to culture and conversational agents. The present study investigates 5398 articles involving conversational agents and culture over the last seven years. In this context, we selected 23 articles based on their approaches and objectives related to our main subject. The findings indicate that most studies in the field are mainly focused on the feasibility of cultural markers tailored to those systems. The main contribution is the identification of the main challenges, contexts and design practices in the field. These results contributed to discussions regarding conversational agents and highlighted some research gaps for future study.

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