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Usability analysis of multiple embodied conversational agents in eBanking services

Embodied conversational agents are increasingly being researched and investigated as available computing processing power and graphics capabilities increase. Early research into the use of such agents was highly positive even using poor quality graphics. As the technology improves so the use of such agents in everyday life becomes more feasible. Real world human-human conversation often involves multiple people and in the banking sector, it is common to deal with 'experts' in their own areas of expertise. If this type of conversation is to be replicated in a virtual world using multiple embodied conversational agents, the issue arises as to what effect that has on the perceived usability of such embodied conversational agents and banking systems. This thesis seeks to investigate the usability issues surrounding multiple embodied conversational agents in assessing the effectiveness of systems employing multiple agents, especially as to date, little work has been carried out in this field. A history of conversational embodied agents is presented, along with details of the design and interface development approach used throughout the research. Four incremental, empirical studies are presented that are designed to investigate the usability of multiple agents in varying manners, in 3D virtual banking environments. Firstly multiple agents are compared to a single agent, in a scenario where information and dialogue are similar in both versions. Whilst limitations are identified with the multiple agent design, promising results are reported which warrant further research. Two further empirical evaluations are reported in an attempt to optimise the usability of multiple embodied conversational agents in an eBanking environment. A fourth and final evaluation revisits the issue of comparing a single agent version to an optimised multiple agent version. This demonstrates the advantages of optimisations derived from the previous experiments, in making the multiple agent version as usable as the single agent version. The conclusions from this body of research support the use and further research of multiple embodied conversational agents in future eBanking services.