Abstract:

Educational and career guidance professionals increasingly use digital tools to support reflection and competence recognition. In this context, YEPA is being developed as a guidance-oriented system that combines a chatbot-based interview with a visual Learning Experience Map (LX Map) to help users express experiences, structure them, and use them in educational or career support.

This paper examines the user acceptance of YEPA across three rounds of testing. The objective is to understand how end users perceive the system’s usability and usefulness. A second objective is to analyse how participants experience the relationship between the conversational interview and the resulting reflective LX Map, especially in connection with educational support and career guidance.

The study draws on three rounds of evaluation combining online test batches and field tests conducted in insertion organisations based in Fribourg. The material includes surveys, direct user feedback, and structured observation notes collected during live sessions. Our analysis considers acceptance from a pragmatic perspective: assessing the tool’s perceived usability and usefulness in real support practices. Particular attention is given to two complementary modes of use: autonomous online interaction with the chatbot, and in-person use supported by direct discussion of the LX Map with a coaching professional.

The paper is expected to provide early insights into the acceptance of a chatbot-based guidance tool and the conditions that support this acceptance in practice. In particular, it will explore how users experience interacting with a chatbot rather than a human, including the extent to which the interaction is perceived as comfortable, non-judgmental, and conducive to expression. It will also examine the perceived usefulness of the LX Map as a visual representation for understanding, discussing, and reflecting on one’s experiences and competences. Finally, the analysis will consider how users perceive response time, especially whether longer waiting times remain acceptable when the resulting output is seen as relevant and worthwhile.

This study will contribute to a better understanding of how users perceive and accept a chatbot-based tool for guidance and competence-related support. More specifically, it will help clarify the value users attribute to a non-judgmental conversational interface, the practical usefulness of the LX Map as a support for reflection and discussion, and the extent to which response-time tolerance depends on the perceived quality and relevance of the results. The paper aims to inform the design of educational and guidance-oriented digital tools that combine conversational interaction with visual representations of user experience.

Keywords:

Chatbot, User Study, Conversational User Interface, Career Guidance, Competence Recognition, Student Support System.