You only need 2 things to build a kickass UX for your chatbot

Photo credit: georgejmclittle / 123RF Stock Photo.

Before I start, why should you read this? Well, I have engineered the UX of more than 15 bots and know a thing or two about consumer preferences. Apart from this, I am part of a startup — ChatterOn — which is creating a platform for developers to make chatbots.

There are two aspects of creating a good bot: flow and AI/ML based intent and entity extraction.

Flow

Everything in this world has a flow. When you book a cab from Uber, you choose your start location, end location, type of cab, and then book it. You do not just pay and then choose the type of cab.

This is not just the case with human and business interactions but is also equally true for human and human interactions as well. For example, if I started this article by writing this sentence, you probably would have taken me for a fool. Therefore, there is no doubt that each and every developer should focus on building bots with the proper flow.

This is nothing new, and many have tried to talk about it — they call it “context.” However, I think context is a broader term and largely depends on the end-user and his/her moods. So, I urge you to focus on flow because if you understand the end user’s step-by-step actions while using your bot, you can limit the context to something a single developer or a group of developers can handle and accommodate.

Intent and entity extraction

You have to use natural language processing (NLP), artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) to do this part properly (you can also implement phrase matching, but that isn’t a good solution). Intent and entity extraction help make computers understand what the user wants.

This is very important, as humans think in natural language. If I can get stuff done by blurting out my thoughts, then that’s convenient (especially if it is voice commands).

Let’s see what happens if we use only one aspect to build a bot

AI only

From my experience, building a bot without any flow and only with intent and entity extraction (however good it is) is a very bad idea. Without flow, users get lost during the conversation and end up dissatisfied.

Here’s an example: you were ordering a pizza and had already selected one from the menu. Now, the bot asks “What size do you want?” The user replies with “What are all the sizes you have?” If the developer did not handle the flow properly, the bot could say “Sorry, I couldn’t get that.” This is a dead end and will confuse the user, forcing him to start the conversation all over again.

Flow only

Conclusion