A Chatbot for Dialogue About Research

Description

How can visitors to an exhibition do more than simply observe research — how can they also share their own questions, opinions, and criticism with researchers? This is exactly what the study with MIRA, a digital chatbot at the COSMO Science Forum, investigates.

Visitors can ask questions about exhibits, provide feedback, express criticism, or contribute their own perspectives. The input is anonymized and evaluated exclusively for research purposes. The aim is to examine how digital conversation formats can support exchange between society and science.

The focus is not merely on demonstrating a chatbot as a technical tool, but on exploring how science communication can become more dialogical. In exhibitions, visitors’ feedback often remains fleeting: it arises in the moment, but is rarely systematically recorded or communicated back to researchers. MIRA tests whether a digital interface can help close this gap.

The study is part of a PhD project at the Technische Universität Dresden, Chair of Technical Design. It examines how digital feedback stations in science exhibitions need to be designed so that they are understandable, accessible, and meaningful to use. The project also addresses issues of trust, transparency, and the question of what kinds of feedback are actually useful for researchers.