Conversational UI in Singapore

Went to the inaugural meeting of Chatbots SG this evening.

As is traditional I have to say something about the catering: there was no food, only drinks, so I took my seat.  My seat had a freebie: Slack socks.  I tried them on later and fortunately they weren't slack socks.

The venue wasn't too bad, but I do find that the Block 71 area is rather earnestly hip and trendy.

Anyway, I went there to listen to what people had to say about chatbots, or conversational UIs as nobody described them.  We did learn that the group had been set up "by accident", but didn't get more detail on that story.  Anyway there were talks by people representing a number of organisations, so here goes.

Slack

OK, so we start with the sales/marketing pitch.

The premise presented for chatbots in Slack is that one does not have to build a new app or web site with forms, menus, etc, instead one can use Slack conversations (and buttons) as the UI.

What did we learn?

• walkiebot.co is great for prototyping conversations
• dashbot's chatbots analysis reported that  4/5 of chatbot users prefer textual engagement over buttons
• someone in the audience said "algo" instead of algorithm - it sounds equally as bad as people saying "geo" instead of geography
• unfortunately, we didn't manage to get any roadmap secrets

We also learnt that Slack are now introducing forms, menus, etc. to their chatbot toolbox.  Remember those?  They're the kinds of things that you get on the apps or web sites that you might otherwise build instead of using a chatbot...

osome

(I have to stop thinking of the AWESOM-O 4000 when I hear the name.)

What did we learn?

• if people want to do something quick & easy then they prefer self service
• if people want to do something complicated then they prefer a live agent

One of the audience questions touched on data privacy, which is always something that organisations handling personal data need to be aware of, particularly when it comes to the various pieces of personal data protection legislation.

Bus Uncle

Known as Singapore's favourite chatbot, I'd never heard of it before, partly because it's on Facebook.  Having seen the demonstrations of it I can understand why it's the favourite: the developers paid attention to the user experience.  Bus Uncle uses local vernacular and has a personality.

The developers had also developed a chatbot for visitors to Indonesia, which then raised the area of potential movement towards bot-to-bot conversation, or effectively referrals from one bot to another.

The Bus Uncle chap did mention that they have adverts embedded in conversations... hmmm, product placement.  They do need to make money to pay for this, but I hope it's done well.

And Finally

The pizza arrived, but I needed to go home...