What is a Chatbot Avatar?
Avatar for a chatbot is computer-generated 3D character used to address behaviour, intelligence, and language skills. It is currently being used by businesses that are looking for virtual assistants to provide a unique and personalized experience to their customers.
Why do you need a 3D Chatbot Avatar?
A chatbot avatar could be either a physical or a psychological representation of a character. Chatbots can too have an avatar to become more effective in embodying the company's brand and personality through a character. An avatar can do a far better job in understanding and conversing with a human over a basic chatbot. This improves the overall user experience getting in more engagement into the business.
Chatbot avatars are a new fun way of interacting with your customers to understand their problems and resolve them to retain and reduce their churn cycle.
What should I consider when designing my chatbot avatar?
A chatbot’s avatar makes it possible to create a true social dynamic around the brand. The key is knowing how to choose the appearance of your bot!
Here, nothing should be left to chance. Your chatbot’s avatar must fulfill two basic criteria: it must be relevant to your brand image and it must ensure the quality of the user experience. Ask yourself the following:
1. What is the anticipated goal of your chatbot?
Detail the reasons behind endowing your bot with an avatar. Is it to embody the employer brand? To convey your company’s values? To personalize your customer relations?
2. What is your bot’s target audience?
Just like the design of your website or mobile app, the appearance of your chatbot must be adapted to your target audience. For example, for interactions with millennials or Gen Z, a fun, entertaining representation would be most appropriate.
3. What is your virtual assistant’s position?
Choose your avatar based on the image it should portray: serious, dynamic, friendly, humorous, expert, etc. For example, a Looney Tunes avatar wouldn’t be a particularly suitable choice for an insurance broker!
4. How much should the bot’s personality resemble the user’s personality?
Are the user’s needs being filled with conversation? If so, it most likely will lead to overall enjoyment by the user as they feel they’re in full control of the experience. Inversely, is the bot experience setting a high bar or steep learning curve to utilize the services being offered by the chatbot? Is the bot serving games for enjoyment: trivia, puzzles, arcade, or simulations?
5. Is the chatbot avatar mobile-friendly?
Your chatbot avatar might live in a lot of different places, but the most utilized interface going forward will be the mobile screen. Lots of details disappear when you scale your design down in size, so view how your avatar looks at 32×32 and 64×64 pixels. Does one design retain its integrity better than another? Focus on the elements that scale well.
Answering these questions will help you choose the most appropriate avatar for your chatbot. And thereby multiply the effectiveness of its interactions!
Tips for chatbot avatar design
- Know your demographic and target user personas
- Match your avatar with your brand’s positioning
- Pick a gender
- Get multiple designers involved
- Design for mobile screens
- Consider doing your design in vector format
- Test your design
- Name your avatar
