Design Matters! How Visual Gendered Anthropomorphic Design Cues Moderate the Determinants of the Behavioral Intention Towards Using Chatbots

The design cue gendered anthropomorphism plays an important role in tailoring chatbots towards customers' design preferences. Yet, it still remains unexplored if this design cue affects the determinants of the behavioral intention towards using chatbots as moderating variable. Therefore, this paper investigates the moderating influence of gendered anthropomorphic design cues on the key determinants of the behavioral intention that are defined by the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). For this purpose, three chatbot design groups have been created and compared: a female and a male designed chatbot with gendered anthropomorphic design cues, as well as one chatbot without gendered anthropomorphic design cues. A sample of 209 participants is randomly assigned to each design group. The PLS-SEM multigroup analysis shows gendered anthropomorphic chatbot design cues yield significant positive impact of the performance expectancy towards the behavioral intention to use chatbots. This was not the case for the design group without gendered anthropomorphic design cues. Also, in contrast to the male anthropomorphic chatbot design, the female anthropomorphic chatbot design yields significant positive impact of social influence on the behavioral intention.