“Less in the Sense of What You Want, but More in the Sense of What You Need”: Needs, Preferences and Requirements for a Mental Well-Being Chatbot to Support Students in Higher Education

The mental well-being of university students is at risk. With the rapid development of artificial intelligence, chatbots have great potential as a support tool for student mental well-being (StMWB). However, research on students’ perspectives on how to develop a StMWB chatbot is scarce. Accordingly, this study aimed to explore students’ needs, preferences, and requirements for the development of a StMWB chatbot. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 25 students. Six themes were identified in the interviews. Through these themes, patterns and topics emerged, such as ethical considerations with mental well-being chatbots, the personalization-privacy paradox, and the chatbot’s level of humanness. In this paper, we reflect and provide recommendations on how to develop a StMWB chatbot by considering the needs and preferences of students, as well as their concerns about it. In addition, we provide theoretical and practical implications, and we give future suggestions for researchers working with chatbots.