Accessibility in chatbots

Many businesses use chatbots to provide customers with fast and efficient service. The chatbot can provide support to both individuals and companies by simulating human communication using automated dialogues or artificial intelligence.

Companies can save money and individuals can order tables at a restaurant or order taxis in an easier way. In the long term, many believe that chatbots could be able to help with almost all kinds of services and become a natural part of interpersonal conversations in a chat. But do the implementations work for everyone?

As far as we know, no one has made a structured study of how accessible the implementations of chatbots are, says Lena Drevsjø, accessibility expert at Funka's Oslo office. We would like to increase the knowledge around this topic.

The goal of the project Funka now commences together with the Norwegian Tax Agency and IAAP Nordic is to increase the knowledge about how chatbot implementations work for people with disabilities and find out what opportunities there are for improvement.

In the project, we will examine how some selected implementations of chatbots work from an accessibility point of view. The selection is made together with the project partners and aims to cover the needs of the public and private sector, industry and users.


Funding: BufDir UnIKT (Norway)
Consortium: Funka (project manager), the Norwegian Tax Administration and IAAP Nordic
Period: 2019
Budget: 280 000 NOK

Project update

  • Chatbots for everyone?

    Funka has investigated how chatbots work for people with disabilities. The Norwegian Directorate for Children, Youth and Family Affairs funded the project which is now completed.