“I Don't Know Exactly but I Know a Little”: Exploring Better Responses of Conversational Agents with Insufficient Information

Abstract

Despite the increasing presence of conversational agents (CAs) in our daily lives, the lack of information and technology behind them prevents CAs from answering many questions. One of the most typical problems facing conversational user interfaces today is that they often disappoint people by giving the same answer (e.g., “I don't know”). In this work, we focused on situations in which CAs do not provide a proper answer because of a lack of information. Under these situations, we aimed to find more effective answer strategies for CAs to provide people better user experiences. We tested four different response strategies using different degrees of inferences and information as ground. We found differences in usability and user experience depending on how CAs respond. Our results will help designers understand how people feel about the way CAs respond and create better CA responses in situations where it is difficult to provide accurate answers.