6 Chatbot UX Design ‘Must-haves’ for 2018
Create Exceptional User Experiences without Superior AI Capabilities
Believe it or not, UX design is arguably as important as it ever will be when it comes to the success of chatbots. Users are still adjusting to the slow yet steady industry transition from traditional Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) to Conversational User Interfaces (CUIs) which provides an excellent opportunity to guide them towards the desired user experience with a well-thought-out UX design.
1) Welcome Message 😄
A welcome message is as simple as it sounds. It’s an opportunity for the chatbot to nicely greet the user, set expectations for what it can help the user with, and provide essential tips and instructions for optimal use.
Don’t underestimate how much a well crafted welcome message or a lack thereof can impact UX. Just like first impressions shape our future relationships with other humans, the user’s first interaction with a chatbot can make or break the success of their chat session and determine whether or not they will be a repeat user.
2) Failure Message 🤦♂
While the welcome message helps set the tone for the conversation, the failure message helps to atone for a chatbot’s shortcomings. A user’s response should never under any circumstances go unanswered by the chatbot. This is unacceptable from a UX perspective and leaves the user in an awkward state to move forward with the conversation.
Imagine if you were having a conversation with another human and they listened to something you said but provided absolutely no response. Unless you have to interact with this person, you’re probably most opt just to walk away and end the conversation. This same feeling could easily resonate with a chatbot’s users.
Each failure message should accomplish two things:
- Acknowledge the failure in a remorseful tone.
- Provide an opportunity for the user to overcome the failure OR extract valuable feedback from the user to help prevent the failure in the future.
3) Response Buttons 📍
Response buttons provide an excellent opportunity to overcome AI shortcomings and to help guide users to their answer when needed. Add in the fact that it takes less time to click a button than to type out a response, especially on mobile devices, and response buttons are a no-brainer when building a chatbot.
Until there is more advancement in the fields of AI, ML, and NLP, it is inevitable that a chatbot is going to fail to respond to a custom message typed by a user correctly. Using response buttons to create clickable menus is an excellent method of guiding end users through the bots knowledge base and the answer they’re ultimately looking for.
Hint hint: These buttons can even be added to failure messages to help get the user back on the right track with just a single mouse click.
4) Rating Buttons 👍👎
Rating buttons allow users to let a chatbot know whether or not it’s performing up to par. These can be as simple as thumbs up and thumbs down buttons for the user to click. Whatever method is employed, it is best to keep the process of rating chatbots passive to not directly interrupt the conversation.
Bonus points for incorporating a failure message to get feedback from the user when a dissatisfied rating occurs.
5) Typing Indicators ⌨️
Typing indicators allow a chatbot to interact with a user in a more natural conversation. For the iOS users out there imagine having an iMessage conversation with another iOS user. Typing indicators let you know that the other person is in the process of typing out a new response. Based on this information you may hold off on responding yourself again until you receive this response in progress.
This same logic holds true in most chatbot conversations. If a chatbot needs to send multiple responses to a user, it is ideal for the chatbot to wait momentarily in between messages with the typing indicator present. This resembles a more natural conversation than having the chatbot respond immediately with multiple messages.
If a chatbot is going to pause in between messages it is crucial that a typing indicator is in use; otherwise, the user may think the chatbot is not working and begin uttering unpleasantries in the chatroom. That poor chatbot…
If you’d like to learn more about the benefits of using typing indicators along with intelligent listening in chatbots, check out this in-depth article on the subject.
6) Avatars 🐥
Avatars help to create a more friendly feel for the conversation and give the chatbot a bit of a persona. Depending on the context of a chatbot’s use this concept can even be taken a step further by enhancing this persona by providing the chatbot with a unique voice. While this may not be appropriate for all use cases, mixing in a little humor with a chatbot can yield a subtle boost to the UX without requiring one to roll up their sleeves.
