Breaking down barriers to warning technology adoption: usability and usefulness of a messenger app warning bot
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: In crisis situations, citizens’ situational awareness is paramount for effective response. While warning apps offer location-based alerts, their usage is relatively low. We propose a personalised messaging app channel as an alternative, presenting a warning bot that may lower adoption barriers. We employ the design science research process to define user requirements and iteratively evaluate and improve the bot’s usability and usefulness. The results showcase high usability, with over 40 % expressing an interest in utilising such a warning channel, stressing as reasons the added value of proactive warnings for personalised locations while not requiring a separate app. The derived requirements and design solutions, such as graphically enhanced user interface elements as guardrails for effective and error-free communication, demonstrate that a suitable warning chatbot does not necessarily require complex language processing capabilities. Additionally, our findings facilitate further research on accessibility via conversational design in the realm of crisis warnings.
Source: i-com
Authors: Jasmin Haunschild, Markus Henkel, Christian Reuter
Institution: Technische Universität Darmstadt
Language: English
Subfield: Human-Computer Interaction
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $848
Award: G5725725525
OpenAlex ID: W4407927003