B-Wise by Young Africa Live
Validating Usability, Trust, and Content Clarity in a Youth Health Chatbot
Project Scope
User testing of the B-Wise chatbot to assess usability, trust, and content clarity for young people accessing sexual, reproductive, and mental health information via WhatsApp and Facebook. The work focused on navigation, comprehension, tone, and user comfort across different youth age groups.
Outcome
Actionable insights that informed improvements to content structure, conversational flow, and topic prioritisation. The findings strengthened the chatbot’s usability and credibility, supporting B-Wise in delivering accessible, youth-centred health information in a format users trust and understand.
Role
UX Researcher & Strategist
The Challenge
B-Wise operates in a sensitive and high-risk information space where clarity, trust, and emotional safety are critical. The challenge was to evaluate whether young users could easily navigate the chatbot, understand complex health information, and feel comfortable engaging with deeply personal topics across WhatsApp and Facebook. Any friction in language, tone, or flow risked confusion, disengagement, or loss of trust, making usability not just a functional concern, but a matter of care and credibility.
The Approach
I led the user research and experience design work, translating youth insights into clear, stigma-sensitive chatbot interactions that improved trust and engagement.
Youth-Centred Research Design
Designed the research to reflect how young people naturally seek and consume sensitive health information on familiar platforms such as WhatsApp and Facebook.
Usability & Findability Testing
Tested key user journeys to assess whether users could easily locate, understand, and trust information without guidance or prior training.
Language & Tone Evaluation
Assessed clarity, emotional sensitivity, and accessibility of chatbot responses to ensure content felt supportive, non-judgemental, and age-appropriate.
Trust & Credibility Assessment
Examined how the chatbot’s persona, response structure, and pacing influenced users’ willingness to engage with sensitive topics.
Insight Synthesis & Prioritisation
Translated findings into clear, actionable recommendations to improve content structure, interaction design, and topic prioritisation.
The Solution
The solution delivered a trusted, youth-centred chatbot experience that makes sensitive sexual and reproductive health information accessible, supportive, and easy to engage with.
Built around how young people naturally ask questions, seek reassurance, and explore sensitive topics in familiar chat environments.
Strengthened the chatbot’s personality to feel supportive, relatable, and trustworthy, reducing anxiety when engaging with sexual health content.
Simplified and prioritised content to improve comprehension while maintaining clinical accuracy and reliability.
Designed conversations to minimise fear and stigma, encouraging openness and continued engagement rather than withdrawal.
Established flexible design and content patterns that allow the platform to evolve across topics, platforms, and changing youth needs.
The Evidence
Message Formats
This testing explored how different message formats affected comprehension, comfort, and engagement when sharing sensitive sexual health information via chat. The findings showed that shorter messages delivered in sequence were easier to absorb and felt less overwhelming, particularly for complex or sensitive topics. Imagery supported understanding when used sparingly and contextually, but text remained the primary driver of trust and clarity.
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Card Sorting
Card sorting sessions were conducted to understand how young people naturally group, label, and prioritise sexual and reproductive health topics. Participants organised content based on their own mental models, revealing how they expect information to be structured when seeking guidance on sensitive issues. The exercise highlighted mismatches between clinical categorisation and youth language, helping refine topic groupings, naming conventions, and navigation logic.
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Guerrilla Testing
In addition to remote testing, we conducted guerrilla, in-person research sessions with participants who matched the target youth profile. Physical cards and post-it notes replaced digital tools, creating a more tactile and approachable experience. While sessions ran longer than planned, the informal setting reduced fatigue and encouraged open participation. Engagement dropped during the second card-sorting exercise, highlighting the need to balance depth with cognitive load when designing participatory research for youth.
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The Impact
Youth Participants Engaged
+150
Core Journeys Tested
+10
Content Areas Refined
+6
Actionable Design Insights
+20
Personal Reflection
Holding Space for Difficult Questions
Working on B-Wise as a young person myself made the importance of trust, tone, and safety immediately clear. The project felt personal, because the questions users were asking mirrored conversations many of us have but rarely feel comfortable voicing. Through the research, I saw how easily young people disengage when information feels clinical, judgmental, or unfamiliar, even when it is technically correct. This work reinforced my belief that youth-centred digital tools must feel human first: approachable, respectful, and supportive. Designing B-Wise became an exercise in listening closely, softening systems, and creating space for curiosity without fear.
