Conversational User Interfaces in Healthcare: A Scoping Review of ACM CUI Conference Contributions
Abstract
Conversational user interfaces (CUIs) are increasingly explored in healthcare, yet their roles, agency, and evaluation practices remain fragmented. This scoping review analyses 22 healthcare-related full papers from the ACM Conference on Conversational User Interfaces (2019–2025) across four pillars: healthcare context, CUI design and interaction, agency, and evaluation. Findings show that healthcare CUIs cluster in prevention and behaviour change, rely on structured conversational strategies, and operate with constrained authority, with no system exercising directive control. Evaluation remains predominantly short-term and usability-focused, with limited attention to clinical or longitudinal outcomes. We outline gaps and directions for designing and assessing healthcare CUIs with greater attention to agency and context.
Citation
APA
Kothari, N., Valente, A., & Billinghurst, M. (2026). Conversational user interfaces in healthcare: A scoping review of ACM CUI conference contributions. In ACM Conversational User Interfaces 2026 (CUI '26). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3816046.3816289
BibTeX
@inproceedings{kothari2026conversational,
author = {Kothari, Nidhi and Valente, Andreia and Billinghurst, Mark},
title = {Conversational User Interfaces in Healthcare: A Scoping Review of ACM CUI Conference Contributions},
year = {2026},
month = {jul},
booktitle = {ACM Conversational User Interfaces 2026 (CUI '26)},
address = {Bremen, Germany},
publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
doi = {10.1145/3816046.3816289},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3816046.3816289},
isbn = {979-8-4007-2741-2},
keywords = {conversational user interfaces, healthcare, scoping review, agency, system authority, digital health}
}