Design principles for virtual humans in educational technology environments

Virtual humans are characters used as social interfaces. These characters have shown a positive impact both on social interactions and learning. The current chapter summarizes a set of design principles that span the use of virtual humans as interface elements and social elements within learning technologies. Much of the virtual human research in the learning area has investigated their use as interface elements (e.g., directing attention, information presentation). However, virtual humans’ stronger contribution comes from the role as a social interface (e.g., conversational partner, feedback, emotional support, and modeling skills). These design elements should be taken into consideration in order to support deep learning with virtual human-based systems.