Tōku Hoa: A personalized agent for mental health

This project explores how a virtual human delivered via a mobile phone could support mental health and wellbeing, with a particular focus on young Māori men. The Empathic Computing Laboratory at the Auckland Bioengineering Institute has been developing a mobile application that recognises and responds to aspects of a user’s mental wellbeing using an AI-driven virtual character. Users can talk to the character, receive supportive guidance, and set goals to help manage their wellbeing.

The goal of this project is to build on this existing work by adapting the virtual character and interaction design to better reflect the needs, values, and preferences of young Māori men, and by conducting a longer-term user evaluation to understand their experiences over time. This will involve iterating on the application’s user interface, the appearance and behaviour of the virtual character, and the language used, based on feedback from the target user group.

The expected outcomes include a redesigned application, findings from user studies, and a research report suitable for publication.

Māori students are strongly encouraged to apply, but this project is open to all suitably motivated students.

Background

HCI, design, psychology, or software engineering.

Skills

Interface design, interest in user studies, qualitative and/or quantitative data analysis.

MBIE Catalyst Funding

Page expires: 15 March 2026