This document provides an overview of chatbots including: - Defining what chatbots are and why they are important for app developers. - Discussing different approaches for chatbots such as replacing apps, greeting users for apps/websites, and using conversation as a means or end. - Covering best practices for conversational UX, platforms to build chatbots, and why the presenter likes the API.ai platform.

1. next.io
Workshop @1871
Chatbots 101
venu vasudevan
Lightpad | Rice | next.io

2. me
• vp data science, lightpad - consumer iot stealth
• rice ece, adjunct faculty - iot, m/c learning
• next.io, startup advisory - sports wearables, k-12 edubots

3. agenda
• what are Bots?
• why Bots (should be) important to App developers?
• what works - topic | UX | ..
• how - platform? approach?
• one platform — crawl, a little walk ..

4. What’s a chatbot?
the ‘Sirajology’ view ..

5. why Bots?
Bot App

6. be where the people are
they live within messaging
they don’t use apps

7. Bots vs Apps - OR or AND?
(5 points of view)
red ocean =
fight to the death
blue ocean = win-win
(in theory at least)
OR

8. 1. chatbot: AI that creates new ‘systems of record’
narrow & deep AI
$30 M raise for calendar app!
spent 1.5 years understanding every nuance of the concept ‘Time’!
understand peer meeting vs boss meeting vs investor meetings
european vs US cultural norms on meeting confirmation
human like
if AI can redefine the performance metric for task
Cred. Tomasz Tunguz, First Round Capital

9. 2. chatbots as frictionless app replacements
Credits. avc.com, Kik, Vahan
messaging : must be
conversation : maybe

10. 2. chatbots as frictionless app replacements
color me skeptical on frictionless as sole barrier to entry
Credits. Vahan

11. 3. chatbot as ‘greeter’ for app/web
• presenting a decision as a
‘all at once’ form is
daunting (e.g. loan
approval)
• chatbot warms up the user
with some ‘form filler’
questions as conversation
• redirects to app or web
site for high-volume
interaction the traditional
way

12. 4. chatbot : conversation is the means, not end
• chatbot as MVP prototyping
tool
• users talk to it because
• it is entertaining
• always there if i need it
• users assign chatbots a
persona, whether it wants
one or not
• persona can divulge more
than clicks can

13. 5. chatbot : conversation the end, not the means
• the ‘classic’ hollywood view
of Bots, slightly less
intelligent
• skillful-ish conversationalist in
a narrow domain
• ‘artful nagger’ for habits i
want to grow
• good listener (‘band-aid’
for therapy)

14. for what (topics)?
Bot App

15. One segmentation of ‘Bot-table’ problems
Source. https://goo.gl/9HGxPY
my take
+ high involvement conversation
in low involvement interactions

16. an FB perspective
Source.http://goo.gl/sRfLQa

17. how (platform | ux)?
Bot App

18. chatbot architecture
Task
Cloud
Chatbot
Cloud
conversation AI
‘world’ model AI
FulfillmentUX
ingress workers

19. ux:web
Get weather
City
Date
submit
effective at what
ineffective at why

20. ux:bot
hi @botcat, wat up bro?
bon giorno, what can i do you for?
how’s the weather?
where?
the bay area, of course?
bay city, wisconsin?
could you give me a city name?
i’m traveling to san francisco next week, you dumb cat!
…………
small talk
ambiguity
interesting detail
effective at why
‘ineffective’ at what
‘interesting’ detail
chatbots (if successful): a rude awakening to UX competencies
(screen designer —> storyteller)

21. conversational best practices
ingress - choose the right contextual runtime (slack, map,
msg?)
attitude - sound helpful, and be clear on what you
can help with
ice breaker - help user articulate with example
what & why - explain yourself w/results (back
off w/increasing familiarity of user)
choices - < 3 options in a decision
fail gracefully - acknowledge failure, offer alternatives,
who’s talking? - be clear (e.g. in mixed human-m/c):
when answer is m/c vs human
revise & repeat - when user changes mind (e.g. shirt
size when asked color) - track back and clarify
conversationfunnel

22. bot platform vocabulary
What you want to do (verb)
Nouns that become pronouns or
implicit(s)
What you want to do it to (noun) Entity
Intent
Context

23. Chatbot platform : personality match
fan of instant gratification
Chatfuel + numerous ‘Bot in 10
minutes’ platforms
loves rope
won’t hang oneself
Wit.Ai. Expressive. Hard to
debug (e.g. training examples SNR)
open to clubby, if it
helps my career
New(er) chat platforms — Kik | Telegram
narrow & deep
is my thing
Entrepris-ey e.g. Salesforce Einstein
‘fair & balanced’
Api.ai - plenty of guard rails.
plenty of rope
brutal platform consolidation coming up ..

24. why i like api.ai
effort
tedium
smalltalk
domain
modeling
conversation
model
integration
(front &
back) iteration &
debugging
decent 1-click
capability for
baseline smalltalk
domain libraries
really good for the simple stuff.
better than average for complex
1-click front end
decent api for backend

25. api.ai stuff ..

26. @venuv62
venuv62@gmail.com
venu.vasudevan@lightpad.com