Boon Yew Chew

IxDA London

Lessons from writing chatbot UX guidelines

26 July 2017

Uncovering chatbot IxD basics

Lessons learnt

Popular chatbot literature isn't helpful for design.

Make your own guidelines.

Chatbot interaction design

Facilitating conversation-based interactions through

dynamic text and visual-based dialogue

Side-stepping misconceptions Not everything needs AI

Chatbots failure rates are high

Personality is only the tip of the iceberg

Bot conversation involves a learning curve

Let's design to...

build confidence

meet expectations

enable (re)usability

Let's avoid...

designing for novelty

majoring on personality

being trapped by the tool

Discovery:

2 things to understand

User expectations and needs

AI strengths & weaknesses

Broad perceptions and expectations

People expect chatbots to be...

useful for assisting in basic tasks and queries

efficient and get things done faster

straight to the point

...but not to...

answer all their questions

fully understand their responses

be very intuitive or reliable

offer opinions

be too informal or expressive

Chat Bots: A consumer research study, myclever.com (2016)

Chatbot Strategy: Market research report, Fifthquadrant (Nov 2016)

Expected qualities of a chatbot

Chat Bots: A consumer research study, myclever.com (2016)

Chatbot Strategy: Market research report, Fifthquadrant (Nov 2016)

Knowledgeable

Helpful

Informative

Problem solver

Responsive

Friendly

Polite

Uncovering specific user needs

Input only trial

Chat logs

Call centre logs

Top tasks survey

etc.

Novice vs. expert users

“Just give me the answers.

I’m not interested in chatting.”

“It’s nice that I can ask it things,

and get the answers right away.”

New to chatbots

Will default to common sense approaches

May give up early and not persist

May be open to chatter

Strong expectations for chatbot behaviour

May attempt a few ways to get answers

Speaks in a way that’s appropriate to task

Less patience for chatter

Understand AI strengths and limitations

Firstly, build / test and validate the experience

Understand cognitive technologies, and how it impacts the experience

Know the difference between effort to understand vs. effort to answer

Do an audit Does this chatbot experience match user expectations and

needs?

What’s getting in the way of the conversation?

What’s making the conversation feel odd, pointless, wrong?

Is the AI weakness at fault? What is it good at?

Is it the content that needs fixing?

Writing guidelines and recommendations

Strategy

Craft

Interface

Chatbot strategy 101 Does it need to exist, and why?

What problem does it solve?

Who is it for?

How will it support users?

How does it fit within the wider experience?

Strategy

H I G H U S E R

E X P E C T A T I O N

L O W U S E R

E X P E C T A T I O N

C H A T B O T

W E A K N E S S

C H A T B O T

S T R E N G T H

D E L I V E R

A N D

D E L I G H T

S U G G E S T

A N D

G U I D E

L I M I T

A N D

C L A R I F Y

P A R T N E R

A N D

R E D I R E C T

Confidence is the currency of conversational experiences

Complex responses

Open-ended questions

Expressive personality

Too much assistance

Limited knowledge

Clinical personality

SWEET SPOT

V E R Y C L O S E DV E R Y O P E N

Craft

User confidence comes from Knowing what the bot can do

Feeling understood

Successfully completing tasks

Ease of use

Craft

Communicate limitations and capabilities

Offer structured, suggested answers

Employ conversational repair techniques

Gradually provide tips and suggestions

Provide short, concise responses

Provide shortcuts and quick commands

Support chat saving and resuming

Recall and reuse user data

Integrate useful services

Supporting novice and expert users

Craft

Three layers of chatbot experience

Conversation (text, rich media)

Container (chat window)

Platform (website, app, Facebook messenger)

Interface

Consider the ecosystem

Platform

1 2 3

Universal CTA Footer Promo Hero In-page

"How can I help?" "Who would you like to speak to?"

"Try me out" "Let me introduce myself"

"What about this can I help you

with?"

A landing page!

Platform

1 2 3

How does it work?

Who is it for?

Why is it good?

What can it do?

...

Layout strategies, behaviours

Container

Keep it simple

Container

Emulate real conversations

Conversation

Introduce complexity gradually

Conversation

tips and suggestions

asking for feedback

rich, dynamic UI

complex logic

Good defaults

Conversation

examples up front

structured prompts

concise and simple

avoid repetition

more advanced stuff...

Conversation

self-correction

multi-line handling

context tracking

'undo'

transparency, privacy and security

...

Work to the AI from the user experience, not vice versa

“better use cases – those real-world tasks and interactions that determine everyday business

outcomes – offer the biggest payoffs” https://hbr.org/2017/04/ai-wont-change-companies-without-great-ux

Let's avoid making more human puppets

Thank you.

boon.chew@gmail.com

@boonych