Chapter 3 60 1 | Personalised Virtual Coach The virtual coach is the main part of the application. The virtual coach holds a central position in the application. It acts as a mentor or tutor throughout the application by four functions: a intake; b commitment; c communicator; and d coach. It is always on hand for questions. After downloading and installing the application on the smartphone, the virtual coach will be nested in the Contacts list and will become a friend eventually. It communicates as the user prefers, via the private chat timeline delivered with the application, or in WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Slack or Telegram. Intake New users have to download the application from the App Store. After installation of the application, the user is guided by the virtual coach to go to the intakemodule. It invites the user to register and to set a personal profile (the intake module) with information about demographics data, such as (nick) name, age, gender, weight, length, place of residence. The virtual coach wants to get to know the user to be able to provide the utmost service and personalised feedback. She will be asked to fill in questionnaires about her eating behaviour: “Are you an emotional eater?” [26] and about her personality traits: “What kind of person are you?” [27]. The virtual coach also offers features to customise the application with favourite colour schemes, and to select a preferred picture to personify the virtual coach. Commitment After leading the user through the intake procedure, the virtual coach helps the user to set personal goals and solemnly declare to quit emotional eating behaviour and to learn how to be prepared for the possibility of failure when things don’t turn out to be useful at once. Communicator The virtual coach welcomes users at login and acts as a point of contact. It supplies information about the application and redirects users to the other components. It provides the user feedback on the outcomes of the emo.analyser.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjY0ODMw