Sweet Talks: An Initial Design Science Research Approach to Enhance Trust in Conversational Agents for Diabetes Self-Management

Conversational Agents (CAs) are a promising solution to support people with chronic diseases in the self-management of their condition. Diabetes patients, who have to perform various complex and demanding self-management activities on a daily basis, can especially benefit from this technology. However, a lack of trust in CAs hinders their acceptance and adoption. Despite its high importance, systematically derived design knowledge regarding trust in CAs is scarce. This research paper aims to pro-vide a first step toward a design theory for enhancing the trustworthiness in CAs. A design science research approach is followed to identify design requirements and derive design principles based on expert interviews with diabetes patients and a literature analysis. The findings of this research paper help to enhance the trustworthiness of CAs to increase their acceptance and adoption, thereby contributing to greater engagement in self-management activities.