Should Conversational Agents Care About Our Gender Identity?

Chatbots are increasing their relevance in the global market. Nonetheless, companies are still struggling to develop chatbots that provide their clients with an optimal experience and, so far, few insights have been obtained to improve their related User Experience (UX). This study investigates whether chatbots that consider users’ gender identity result in an improved UX, and whether sensitivity towards this social matter moderates this relationship. Therefore, a one-factor within-subjects experiment was conducted, involving participants interacting with two versions of a buying-assistant chatbot. In one condition, the chatbot provided a more personalised interaction by presuming the user’s gender identity by their sex assigned at birth and conversing with them using a gender-specific language (e.g., ‘women’s clothing’, ‘men’s clothing’). The second condition, instead, used a gender-neutral approach, using gender-neutral language (e.g., ‘clothing’). We hypothesised that the chatbot presuming a cisgender identity of the user would result in a higher UX than the gender-neutral chatbot, and that this effect would be more substantial for users who score low on gender sensitivity. UX was measured by evaluating the chatbot’s Usability, Empathy and Supportiveness. Results indicate that the chatbot presuming a cisgender identity was considered significantly more usable and supportive, but less empathetic. A moderation effect of gender sensitivity on the evaluation of the chatbots was not found.