“The chatbot gives employees advice on how to protect their eyes, focusing on three topics: ergonomics, good visual habits and eye exercises”
“Companies provide employees with computers but give them no guidance on best practices for avoiding eye damage,” says Nathalie Willart, orthoptist and Founder of Coach For Eyes. “In companies today, more than 70% of employees complain of eyestrain,” she adds. This issue is exacerbated by employees’ overexposure to digital technology.
Combination of two skillsets
To prevent the risks inherent in these working methods, two start-ups have combined their skills: Coach For Eyes, a specialist in visual health issues, which has developed a smartphone application and a webapp, and YesWeShare, a specialist in impact chatbots, enriched with artificial intelligence and micro-learning. The result is “Vizybot”, a solution dedicated to companies to protect the eyes of their employees. This innovative chatbot in terms of visual health at work aims to neutralize visual disorders of employees facing digital technology.
First Eye Health Pilot Test at Orange
The chatbot was pilot-tested at Orange and implemented on tools that employees were very familiar with, such as Teams and Webex.
Twice a week, employees receive advice through these messaging platforms on how to protect their eyes, focusing on three topics. The first is ergonomics — users must ensure that they have an optimal setup. In particular, they should have an appropriate screen height and brightness. The second relates to good visual habits, including blinking and regularly giving your eyes a break from the screen. The third suggests a series of eye exercises to help strengthen or relax your eye muscles. “We currently have an engagement rate of about 70%” says Nathalie Willart.
Users really enjoy the microlearning approach, because it allows for quick conversations (from 30 seconds to 2 minutes) that are interactive and tailored to the issues they may have encountered. “The technology used by this chatbot allows for up-and-down communication,” says Gaëlle Bassuel, CEO of YesWeShare. “while respecting confidentiality, the anonymous statistical data can be used to guide occupational medicine and preventionists in their action plans,” she explains. “The tone is playful and humorous, without ever making our interlocutors feel guilty or stigmatizing them,” adds Nathalie Willaert.
Chatbots Are Not Doctors
In accordance with the law, the chatbot never provides medical advice; it simply offers information, empowering users to change their habits and, if necessary, it refers them to medical practitioners or occupational health services when issues stray outside the bounds of the chatbot’s knowledge.
To develop this chatbot, the two CEOs developed a technical specification revolving in particular around security, so that it can be installed in companies’ information systems.
In the long run, this tool will help prevent disorders caused by excessive screen time. This chatbot has already attracted a lot of customers, from occupational health and safety teams in large companies such as Orange, to stock and mutual insurance companies, given the importance of eye health beyond the world of work, in the context of a worldwide increase in myopia.
