Student project: Conversational User Interfaces for Product Search and Customer Support (winter 2020)

Conversational user interfaces for customer communication, for instance chatbots, have gained considerable attention in recent years. Both GUI-based and spoken interaction is being used in various applications. In this project, we will investigate applications and dialog designs for such areas as product search, product recommendation and and methods for explaining recommended products. One focus will be on the design of effective dialog flows that are understandable and lead the user to the requested information with minimal effort. We will also investigate how a conversation can be adapted to different psychological user characteristics which may be determined based on user’s utterances and other interaction features.

A second focus will be on developing and evaluating prototypes of conversational UIs for different application domains. This will be done using an existing platform, eg for chatbot development (to be chosen in the project). Programming skills at a basic level (Python preferred) are desirable but no strict requirement. The project will involve an initial seminar-like part establishing a joint knowledge basis about the topic. The second part will be related to designing, implementing and evaluating (small) prototypes.

Working language for presentations and communication with the supervisors will be English. Of course, German can be used for day-to-day collaboration in subgroups, where appropriate.

Details

• Course language: English