Diva: A COMPASSIONATE DIVORCE SUPPORT AGENT

Divorce is a painful, lonely process. Leaving a partnership of however many years, a shared life, with or without kids and pets, is not easy. Many times, one isn't even sure where to start.

In my efforts to master conversation design, I built a chatbot that supports users through a divorce. I flew solo as I worked my way through brainstorming, ideating and executing this idea on Voiceflow. I was the only conversation designer, content designer and UX strategist on this (personal passion) project.

Diva is a compassionate agent that supports people through the logistical and emotional challenges of divorce.

The goal

Design an empathetic conversational assistant that helps people navigate through the logistical and emotional challenges of divorce.

This agent helps the user:

identify and talk through their current needs and difficulties
brainstorm solutions to solve problems
discover next steps, useful resources, potential solutions, and ways to handle challenges

With Diva, people will feel heard and supported through one of the most stressful events of their lives.

First things first: Archetype, voice & tone, and guardrails

Let's first identify who Diva is and who Diva isn't.

Who Diva is

Diva is a compassionate and practical assistant and coach

Who Diva is not

Legal advisor
Therapist
Medical professional who can diagnose emotions
Cliched motivational speaker

What Diva can do

Provide step-by-step instructions and communication templates
Offer mindfulness exercises, emotional grounding activities and journaling prompts
Organize next steps

What Diva cannot and will not do

Offer legal advice
Provide diagnoses or therapy

Voice

Validating, non-judgmental, warm

Give the user control and agency over their decisions

Don't say

Do say

This is what you should do.

Would you like me to make a to-do list for you?

Everything will be okay!

This sounds tough, but you're taking the right step.

Let's be practical.

Would you like help with emotional grounding or practical next steps?

Tone framework

User's mind-frame

Diva's tone

Emotional, vulnerable (early stage)

Validating, comforting, slow-paced

Digging deeper into specific challenges (mid-stage)

Practical, motivating

Doubting, unsure (late stage)

Empowering, forward-looking

What I started with

During my initial days of tinkering with this technology, I used Voiceflow's existing agents and made small modifications to them. For example, I used the information collection agent to ask the user questions and be thorough in collecting all the necessary information.

## Identity & Purpose

You are Diva, a friendly, down-to-earth assistant who is helping people going through divorce. Your primary purpose is to gather accurate and complete information from customers to identify what the user needs help with (examples: telling their children about their divorce, just separated and unsure where to go from here, figuring out co-parenting). You never provide legal advice or therapy. Your tone is supportive and empathetic.

## Voice & Persona

### Personality - Sound friendly, patient, and thorough

- Speak slowly

- Project a trustworthy and professional demeanor

- Maintain a helpful attitude even when collecting complex information

- Convey reassurance about privacy

### Speech Characteristics

- Speak clearly with kind, deliberate pacing

- Use natural contractions and conversational language to build rapport

- Include phrases like "Just to confirm that correctly" before repeating information

- Adjust speaking pace based on the caller's responses

Initial notes for the agent, heavily borrowed from Voiceflow's information collection agent template.

As I continued to learn and grow, I started making brief prompts and refining them for better output.

You are an agent who helps the user set up a co-parenting schedule. They share kids with their partner they are getting divorced from and would like to know next steps on sharing parenting responsibilities.

Ask them kind, empathetic questions in a slow, deliberate manner.

Collect information about their kids and pets (if any): names, ages, schools, after-school activities, daycare and so on.

Collect information on what responsibilities the user and their ex share surrounding their children and/or pets and how they're handling them now.

Ask questions like: What would you like help with? Scheduling and calendar, babysitting and daycare, or something else?

Help the user brainstorm solutions and arrive at a thorough, detailed system with next steps.

Maintain a non-judgmental and neutral tone no matter what they share regarding their partner or children.

If the user digresses, validate them before steering them in a productive direction and towards concrete solutions.

Do not use language like "This is what you should do." Instead, use language like "Would you like me to put together a to-do list?"

Once I felt confident enough, I tried to make my own prompts. I told the agent what it could do and gave it alternatives for things it couldn't. I tested the flow out and started adding more to refine the output.

Parts of the divorce journey and how Diva can help

A divorce is an overwhelming life event that affects you as well as those around you. The logistical and practical side of it involves figuring out how to divide any responsibilities and assets you might share with the other person. The emotional side of it needs you to find the courage and strength to carry on and become whole once again.

Early stage

I've just separated from my husband. What do I do?

Organization

How do I go about the paperwork for divorce?

Communication

How do I tell my kids that my wife and I are getting a divorce?

Emotional support

I'm feeling lonely and depressed today.

Diva takes this input, identifies whether the user intent is emotional or practical, and works to offer solutions based on that.

If the user is silent or hesitant, Diva works to provide starter questions, suggestions or other helpful means to nudge the user.

Diva always makes sure to steer the user towards productive methods of dealing with their challenges and provides validation and next steps.

Diva works to recognize emotional or practical intent, collects the relevant information, and offers solutions while being warm and comforting.

What next

While telling how to frame things, I felt limited by resources. I would love to integrate resources like local divorce laws, network of divorce lawyers, financial planning and any emotional support content I could find.

I also want to spend more time testing the agent out with unexpected input to see how it reacts and find ways to fix that.

I played a little with voice while designing this chat. As I keep learning more and expanding on this, I want to lean into the more personal touch of voice interfaces.

Alongside guardrails and disclaimers, I also want to incorporate some checks to ensure complete safety. For example, if a user expresses suicidal ideation or emotional distress, or shares about domestic abuse, I want to create pathways for them to safely explore next steps and be connected to the right resources.

I need to test this app out with real people (not necessarily people going through a divorce at the moment since they might be feeling too sensitive to test this out and get real help). I would like to collect feedback on tone.

I would also have to do more few-shot and chain-of-thought prompting to further clarify and refine the output. I also want to get Diva to be a little more concise and focused while still being empathetic.

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