Intuitive AI Chatbot for Elderly Users

I participated in a two-month UX internship focused on developing an cognitive enhancement chatbot on KakaoTalk called Saemi. My role involved improving chatbot interactions and designing engaging user experiences tailored for elderly users.

Saemi struggled to effectively communicate its value to elderly users. Many users found the chatbot’s purpose unclear, leading to low engagement and retention rates.

1. Encourage user engagement through interactive and participatory content.
2. Optimize chatbot flow by removing unnecessary steps and making interactions more intuitive.

We mapped out the chatbot interaction flow using flowcharts to visualize the user journey. By analyzing each step, we identified redundant interactions and removed unnecessary complexity, streamlining the conversation flow to be more user-friendly and accessible for elderly users.
To reinforce Saemi as a reliable digital companion for dementia prevention, We developed a consistent tone and voice guide for chatbot communication. The goal was to ensure a warm, supportive, and easy-to-understand conversational style that aligned with the needs and expectations of elderly users.
To boost engagement, we contributed to interactive content events, encouraging users to actively participate in conversations with the chatbot. These events helped create a more engaging and personalized experience, strengthening user connection with Saemi.

The improvements led to overwhelmingly positive user feedback, with many elderly users expressing satisfaction with the chatbot’s enhanced usability and more engaging communication style.

The most important aspect of UX design for the elderly is to provide an experience that is not complicated and is intuitive. In particular, removing unnecessary steps in the chatbot interaction to create a familiar flow for users proved to be a key turning point. The consistent writing tone and style of the character helped users feel the conversation with the chatbot was more natural and approachable. As users' trust and satisfaction increased, I realized that the chatbot could perform its role as a digital companion, rather than just a tool. The user participation-driven content events made the interaction with the chatbot more fun and beneficial for elderly users, which increased positive feedback for the service. This reinforced the importance of encouraging users to engage directly with the service and build their own experience.