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A 10-15 minute browser-based health care provider (HCP) chatbot experience that clarifies common misconceptions around the COVID-19 vaccine, in which users can direct the flow of questions through a pre-made dialogue tree.
Since most of the misinformation (in English) is spread via Facebook and Instagram, we will be launching our content from there as a link to the hosting site, with a relevant thumbnail image attached to encourage click rate (as opposed to just a naked link). We’re cognizant that our personal online followings aren't impressive and will contact the faculty to see if we can make use of the BMC social medias as well. We will also use nepotism and make our friends share it on their profiles. While Twitter and Tumblr were not cited as main sources of misinformation spread, they may also serve as decent platforms for distribution.
Since people tend to google in a way that affirms their existing bias, we need to be careful in how to make our project searchable. It must be different enough from existing content so the project doesn't get buried into page 3 of results, but be relevant enough to be appear on the googling radar of people who are COVID-19 vaccine hesitant.
Misconceptions/Fear Believing that the vaccine does more harm than good.
Confusion Is hesitant and skeptical due to the flood of information from both pro and anti-vaccine sides.
Overly optimistic Believes that the vaccine is the silver bullet that will end the pandemic immediately.
Believes in COVID-19, and most other vaccines. They largely trust science, but does not understand it.
<aside> 🌟 User accessibility concerns Low science literacy Low tech fluency
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The learning strategy is based on a simulated conversation between the user and a health care professional (HCP).
This HCP chatbot will address common vaccine questions using lay language, 2D graphics, and metaphors.
The user can direct the flow of questions through the question bank.
The user’s feelings/confusion towards the vaccine are valid. Our goal is to help dislodge the misinformation that they’ve assimilated.
The goal of our project is two fold: to address their immediate concerns at a high level and to guide them towards resources to answer more granulated concerns
The idea is to nudge them in the right direction and promote future autonomous learning rather than completely changing their views on the vaccine.
This will hopefully help them be more open to changing their views/opinions on a topic once they encounter new but credible information.
Before:
The user has a certain opinion about the vaccine and has a certain degree of resistance to information that opposes that opinion.
During:
They are confronted with information that likely opposes their preconceived opinion.
The empathetic tone and easy to digest information sways their stance on their preivously held belief.
The user can take as much time as they need to sift through this new information. Additional sources are provided to reinforce the credibility of the information in our work.
After:
The user has higher willingness to adapt their opinion based on new and credible information.
The user gains a higher level of autonomy in future information gathering.
The scientific content will come from peer reviewed sources, resources gathered from the AMI, and reputable news outlets.
The scientific content will adress the safety, effectiveness, and development of the vaccine.
News sources will be used to adress the economical motive related questions.
Our project is not meant to be the silver bullet to users' hesitancy and questions, but rather as a place to openly explore them without consequence or judgement. We thought it would be important to offer links to further reading that elaborates on sections that they may want to know more about.
We will also include a “show source” feature that toggles the in text hyperlinks references that we used for research. As well as a full APA style reference arranged by section at the end.
We will code the project with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, suitable for both the scope of the project and for a variety of user browsers. Support for the major mobile browsers (Safari and Chrome) will be guaranteed.
Because information evolves so rapidly now, we will likely include the date of when the research/science content was last updated when this goes live, to avoid losing credibility for content doesn’t match up with future affairs.
We will make sure to add the full UofT MScBMC affiliation to our project, so the validity of it won’t be questioned.
The information is largely organized into 3 sections, based on the emotion/opinion the user has towards the vaccine.
For example, a single user cannot both be fearful of the vaccine and overly optimistic about it at the same time.
This architecture is set up to build a manageable dialogue tree and to ease friction in the user experience.
Viewer can choose follow up questions that naturally push the conversation forward