I couldn’t have been more wrong about bots
About four months ago, I wrote in a “Voice vs Textual. Social & Mobile” —
Voice computing is fundamentally a very passive experience in that we don’t need to necessarily pull out a device, unlock it, and tap or type for a bit to access services. The experience is almost like talking to someone. Only caveat being that the “person” is a computing machine.
Chatbot, regardless of how many visual components it has, is still an active experience. One needs to pull a device out, open up a platform’s app, start a chat thread, and engage in a conversational flow to access services. Sure, the process could feel like talking to a person.
I went on to contrast the two trends of voice and text-based computing
While one trend is moving towards a hands-free future, the other is moving towards a device-centric future. While Amazon is trying to get us used to engaging with an assistant through spoken words, messaging platforms are collectively trying to get us used to engaging with assistants through written words. While one feels like playing music in the background, other feels like typing emails (in terms of cognitive load).
I concluded the post with the following —
While I believe that both these interfaces can and will co-exist, I also believe that one will emerge as the dominant one. At times, I really do feel that chatbots are a transitional step to a future where we “talk” to services. Social and mobile went hand-in-hand. Voice and chatbots do not seem to go hand-in-hand.
Over the past three months, I have followed the audio computing more closely. I bought Amazon Alexa to get a taste of the future. I did revisit the post mentioned above.
I am evolving my stance now. I was wrong. Voice and text are not at odds. If we think they are, we are not thinking about human behavior and role of technology deeply enough.
Voice and text will work in harmony to make technology as natural and convenient as possible in different contexts.
Three pieces really helped me change my thinking and frame a well-informed opinion.
I highly recommend reading the following —
The product is no longer the single instantiation — an “app” or a “website,” it’s the brain behind many different instantiations. An analogy that might be helpful is to think about tech products through the lens of a media company. What is the product of Vice Media? It’s a set of reporters who focus on edgy themes that appeal to a certain demographic. It’s a brand. In computer science terms, Vice is instantiated natively in a number of different interfaces. On HBO, it’s a show. In the physical world, it’s a magazine. On Snapchat, it’s a dedicated channel, and on Instagram it’s a set of short video clips and photos. I’m sure a number of additional instantiations of Vice exist elsewhere. The interface into Vice Media is tailored for each specific context, taking different forms where users want it, when they want it . A Vice fan doesn’t point to just one instantiation and say that’s what Vice is.
One way to think about new technology companies is by abstracting away their interface from the “brain” underlying it. A single interface — an app or a website — is no longer the product. The product is the brain itself — the set of assets behind the instantiation in any single interface.
It’s about figuring out those touch-points and those hand-off-points between a conversational context, where someone has a general question or doesn’t exactly know how to express what it is that they want. First is, giving someone a directed task to do in an interface or application that’s designed specifically for that purpose. In the case of Uber, you can order an Uber from within Facebook Messenger today and I think this makes sense in the case where you have relatives visiting from someplace else and who don’t use Uber a lot. Well, suddenly, it becomes very easy, especially if you’re having a conversation with the relatives in Facebook Messenger, to say “Hey, you know here’s my address. Get a ride.” Tap that address, book them a ride, the car shows up, they don’t even have to download the app. Alternatively, for someone who uses Uber on a daily basis, having that conversation to get a car is less efficient than just opening the app, placing the pin on the map, and then going through that process which our designers of course have spent a long time working on and optimizing.
And for the left-field prediction, an entirely new mobile operating system will emerge that is location-centric rather than app-centric. In a modern world where we want fewer interfaces with interconnected functionality, it is time to rethink mobile. Functionality should be visible and then hidden based on where and when we are, rather than what apps we installed. In fact, apps shouldn’t exist. Whatever we need (whether we know it or not) should be at our fingertips, and (no surprise) our voice command should summon anything we want.
