Summary: | People interact through language and conversation everyday, children learn from an early age to express a variety of intents and responses in an understandable way. But the interaction form most commonly used in systems today is nothing like this. Instead, it is dominated by interactions such as button presses, scrolling, drag and drop, swipe gestures etc. What benefits and drawbacks can be observed when transforming such an application to one where users can use their natural inclination towards conversation to converse directly with the system. This exploratory study compares the usability of a conversational interaction form against the 'de facto'-standard that has a point and click interface. To assess usability differences, a chatbot prototype was designed and implemented. The prototype was developed in partnership with the consulting company Knowit and one of the leading Swedish clothing retailers. This prototype was subsequently tested against the clothing retailer's current application. The two interaction strategies were compared for usability for first and second time use. The results show some self reported usability differences in second time use favouring the chatbot prototype.
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