Analysis

AI Chat Bots in Aiding Website Users

Our team aimed at finding ways to engage the user and help them better understand what informatics is. To do this, one method that was prevalent in our research was the use of an AI chat bot or virtual helper. We found that research supported this method, and we then designed our own website analysis based on a grading system of website heuristics, in which a virtual helper was its own category to be graded.

Why AI Chatbots can be Helpful

Writing consultants reporting on multiple projects in the field of AI chat services believe that these tools can help aid user experiences. Tasha Yohan, the Assistant Director of PR and Marketing Relations at NSU, one of the top 200 research universities globally says “The beauty of Julie is that it is an integrated bot that has the ability to connect with several systems throughout NSU to provide the correct answers. Using deep machine learning together with sentiment analysis and natural language processing, the AI is able to educate itself based on user interactions, profile information and outcomes from assessments. In other words, it will learn each user's preferences, likes and tendencies - all to better assist in their NSU experience.” (p.1) Yohan and NSU believe that services like Julie can aid the user experience to students, faculty and staff to give them an edge over other schools. Dave Zielinski is a freelance business journalist. As a business journalist, Zielinski is consistently writing about business practices and trends and is knowledgeable in this field. Zielinski states “Mya also responds to queries about company policies, benefits and culture around-the-clock through SMS, Facebook, Skype, e-mail or a browser window called a chat client where people can chat instantly. This saves recruiters from having to field the same inquiries time and again. If Mya is stumped, it contacts a human recruiter and then responds to the candidate with an answer.” Zielinski believes that chat bots like Mya can mutually benefit the candidate and the potential employer by saving time and work through answering FAQ’s and inquiries about company policies, employee benefits, and scheduling interviews. Both Yohan and Zielinski agree that AI chatbots can aid user experience and benefit the organization as well through reduced time spent answering repetitive questions.

Experts in the field of psychology and education believe the effective methods of communication and persuasion can be used to yield better results in recruitment for organizations. Phillip W Braddy, Adam W Meade and Christina M Kroustalis at the North Carolina State University Psychology Department state that "These findings indicate that website design features (e.g., employee testimonials illustrating teamwork), information about organizational policies (e.g., continuing education programs), specific references to culture dimensions (e.g., ‘‘the organization values workers who are creative and innovative’’), and other miscellaneous but relevant website content (e.g., listing of organizational awards won) played an instrumental role in determining what culture perceptions participants associated with the Fortune 500 companies whose websites were used in the current study" (p.16) Braddy et al believe that communications methods can be used to better persuade people to learn more about an organization. Specifically, their study found that stating organizational accomplishment, statistics, and policies can be a helpful form of persuasive communication in recruitment. Scott Secore has worked for over 25 years in performing arts and higher education and is a PhD candidate in educational leadership. Secore states "Effectively communicating to prospective students the benefits of enrolling at a specific institution is perhaps the greatest charge of a higher education marketer." (p.2) Secore believes that effective communication is essential in the digital age to persuade prospective students towards their institution. These industry professionals agree that recruitment through digital media is possible if clever and effective communication is used.

Organization representatives in the field of artificial intelligence and IUPUI’s SOIC write about how IUPUI is already using AI in multiple instances campus wide. Adam Miller, a Senior Demand Generation Manager at Ivy.AI writes about a study IU UITS conducted on their AI service "For each survey question, IU found a statistically significant outcome in favor of the chatbot. Students rated the chatbot with a higher level of overall satisfaction, and said they would be more likely to use a chatbot to answer their questions than a traditional search method. According to the study, it’s also substantially less difficult to use a chatbot than it is to use traditional search." the study showed AI chatbots were preferable to traditional searching methods when users were tasked with finding answers to complex questions (see figure 2.1). Joanne Lovrinic, Communications and Marketing Manager at IUPUI SOIC writes " Thanks to a new partnership between Cocohub.ai and the School of Informatics and Computing at IUPUI, students in the Artificial Intelligence Bachelor of Arts program will receive a Conversational Bot Developer certification from Cocohub on completion of the new I220 Bots Development course." Lovrinic writes about an existing relationship between IUPUI’s SOIC and Cocohub.ai. Cocohub.ai is a chatbot building platform that organizations can implement in their website to provide users a more seamless experience. Miller and Lovrinic show existing relationships IUPUI have with AI chatbots on other organization websites and how they could be beneficial to SOIC. Cocohub.ai and Ivy.ai are currently in use and could be a possible route for SOIC.

Figure (2.1)

How does an AI chatbot help me?

Reducing user effort
Increase positive user experiences
Reduce the workload of organization representatives
Provide 24/7 interactive support to users

Value-Centered and User-Centered Design Strategies

Our team sought to understand what other information science-driven programs, specifically informatics schools, were doing to address how a user preservice informatics, and what may entice them to connect with the school. While analyzing 20 different websites we found some of the following:

Schools with overall good websites are clearly communicating what their programs are as quickly as possible
Have visually appealing websites and tie in the user with a student, campus, and technical photos, gifs and videos
Have easy access to getting in contact with a recruiter
Have small interactions to keep the user engaged, and keep them clicking

From our research, we found that heuristics play a big role in whether a user continues to look into a website. We also found that Value Drive Design is just one of the many valuable ways to drive users to information and to make sure they understand what informatics is.

We developed a heuristic analysis based on our research findings from this (paper) to evaluate 20 websites. From our analysis, we discovered a couple that we may be experiencing that may not be allowing our users to reach the information they are seeking. Based on our heuristic evaluation of competing informatics schools, we found the best home pages, giving me the most important information first, without having the user spend too much time thinking, reading, or clicking. An example includes the following screenshots taken from the top 3 home pages based on our analysis:

Although these are just screenshots of home pages, if you were to attend the physical website, and navigate through it you would be able to see that each home page pushes programs instantly, as well as have both photos and interactions that tie in the user. Examples of these include when a user hovers over an important button the button changes color or is highlighted. An example of the type of photos that engage the user are group photos of students as you can see on the Washington page, as well as the logo of Blizzard Entertainment that Maryland has.

Although all home pages are structured in different ways, they each reach the goal of instantly trying to push a user to the information they find most important, but do so in an engaging manner that the user wants to pursue. We found in our research that method-based information does better with younger audiences (source), but menu-based information helps with the structure of information. We found this to be reaffirmed in our research.

Catering Specifically to Prospective Students

We sought to find a simplistic solution in order to attract, inform, and encourage prospective students to engage with the SOIC. An extension of researching website heuristics was to look at how the layout and architecture of websites affect how information is processed. We were particularly interested in how a dedicated “prospective students” would be able to help.

Why is this Beneficial?

By creating a page for prospective students, it creates an effective area for students to locate the information that they need. Dr. Michael Poock, who earned his doctorate in educational leadership and studies student affairs, found in 2001 that “Web pages organized by target groups were more effective than those organized by function topic” (p. 18). He also noted that even though survey participants had indicated that function was more important, they had reversed their position after viewing the differences on Web pages. Dipti Desai, in her Master’s thesis regarding website personalization to recruit underrepresented students in the STEM field noted that “a user’s perceived ease of use and information personalization is of great importance since a careless design increases users’ cognitive load and users will avoid using such a feature and/or the website” (p. 16). Extending the observations of Poock and Desai, personalizing the information contained on a page specifically meant for prospective students will make it more likely that students will interact with that page.

Improving Website Functionality

Consolidating relevant links and information onto one landing page for prospective students to use allows them to quickly access information and stay invested in the site. An associate professor in the Department of Communication and Arts at Roskilde University in Denmark, Dr. Lisbeth Thorlacius, “the term functionality in this context covers the user friendly aspects of interfaces and Human Computer Interaction (HCI), where the main objective is to create effective websites here the user quickly and efficiently can obtain the desired pieces of information without being delayed by long downloading times or blind alleys when navigating on the site” (p. 2). The results found from Poock’s 2001 survey of high school students are consistent with this definition. In his survey, students had greatly appreciated easy and intuitive access to information. They also expressed frustration when information was buried beneath multiple pages. A feature that sometimes helped alleviate this were “rollovers” or information from a link that appears when the cursors hovers over the link. According to the students, it helped them find information without having to blindly navigate the links. Tharlacius and Poock’s findings, when applied to as dedicated webpage, could result in a landing page that acted as a roadmap with links leading to information about:

the field,
majors,
financial aid,
careers,
applications,
contact forms,
etc.

Below we can see a screenshot of the side menu (left) and part of (right) the University of Edinburgh's School of Informatics' "Prospective Undergraduates" page. With one click, students are able to find information specifically catered to them in a simplistic fashion. The University of Edinburgh also makes use of hyperlink redundancy so that there were multiple ways to find the same information. This way, if the information was missed on one page, it could be found somewhere else.

Increasing Social Media Engagement

We believe that social media plays a role in communicating and engaging students, and helpful for alerting upcoming events/deadlines/news, so we sought to find if this really was the case. We found that in fact, social media plays a role and is beneficial to use.

Why is Social Media Beneficial?

We found that experts in the field of philosophy in education and human development, and college media and advertising, asserts that it is beneficial to use social media marketing to college students. Melissa Horvath-Plyman (2018), who's in, program in Educational Communication and Technology, Department of Administration, Leadership, and Technology, conducted a research study and found,

“[S]social media is influential on college choice for most prospective students. Although social media was cited as an influential factor on college choice, other sources were seen as more influential including parents, college websites, photos and videos of campus, college visit / open houses, college admissions counselors, and siblings…The findings of this research study show that the most valuable social media type of content for students is the perspectives of other current students. Students also found value in and were most influenced by social media content containing photos, videos, and information about activities and student life…Students are also able to increase their social capital by expanding their social media networks” (p. 196-197).

This assert that although social media in this study does not show that it is more influential than parents, college websites, college admissions counselors, and many more, it shows that it is good to have, because it give a visual of the college life there and it’s also a place where students connect, and learn about upcoming events and deadlines. Bryan Carbone has over 20 years experience in college media, advertising, agrees that social media marketing is important and further adds on and stated the most effective social media marketing strategies to engage college students. Few of them being,

“[i]nfluencer marketing. College students crave authenticity when making purchasing decisions…it is paramount for your social media strategy to stretch out across a variety of social media channels…With 68% of young millennials willing to refer brands to friends, building and nurturing an engaging community with college students will vastly expand your brand awareness to consumers of all demographics, backgrounds, and interests” (Carbone, 2020).

This talks about how it is important to have a strategy of influencer marketing, multi-channel approach, and building an engaged community in social media marketing.

What do both of these quotes mean and suggest?

Both of these highlighted that:

Social media is beneficial to use because it provides authenticity, engages and connects the audience, and delivers the latest news or demands.
The three most effective social media marketing strategies to engage students is influencer marketing, multi-media approach, and building an engaged community.

Tools / Ideas To Implement Into The 3 Strategies

Furthermore, there are some ideas/tools that one can implement in the strategies mentioned, to help improve and provide real and authenticity in social media.

In order to improve and have this authenticity, Matthew Falls, an marketing associate, who helps the undergraduate, as well as graduate institutions recruit students, suggested many ideas. Falls (2020) writes,

“Social media automation tools use software to automate specific tasks, eliminating the need to manage your account on the social media platform itself…HubSpot, Hootsuite, Sprout Social, and BuzzSumo are all examples of social media automation platforms…few examples of features or tools you can use within your social media accounts to boster student engagement: An Instagram post might refer the user to”read more at the link in our bio” and provide the user with their LinkTree of links to further engage with your school or brand.”

In here, Falls suggested an easier way to manage many social media accounts by using social media automation tools, and also suggested that one can use a feature like LinkTree to link to an event or page that the institution wants the students to click on their social media. Joshua Stowers, an entrepreneur, who knows the ups and downs of running a small business, also addressed some ideas one can take, a few of them being,

“ Share photos…Be everywhere…Photos speak louder than words, but a video can send a message at the same time” (Stowers, 2021).

Stowers asserts that one should share photos of events, and be everywhere and not just only doing one social media, and also highlighted that when advertising, using videos can send a lot of messages because of the short attention span of the younger generations.

What do both of these quotes mean and suggest?

Both of these highlighted that in order to improve and provide real and authenticity in social media, one can use and utilize features such as:

sharing photos
Doing more than one social media
utilizing the social media automation tools; HubSpot, Hootsuite, Sprout Social, and BuzzSumo
videos advertising
using LinkTree of links

It is clear that increasing social media engagement is beneficial for providing authenticity to the students, communicating with students, and engaging the students. There are 3 strategies to engage students; Influencer marketing, Multi-channel approach, and Building an engaging community. Furthermore, in those strategies mentioned, one can implement some ideas/tools; sharing photos, being everywhere utilizing the social media automation tools, using videos advertising, using LinkTree of links, to improve and provide real authenticity in social media.