Chatbot Design Process With Real Examples!

Remember those phone-based IVR queues? We all have grown up to despise those, right? But what if technology provides you with an ultra-advanced version of interaction that induces personalized conversation? Those preset and one-size-fits-all queries will be no more, and you'll just feel like talking or interacting with a real-time human.

Yeah, that's what we call AI-enthusiastic chatbots. And you, as a UX/UI designer, have to be through the process of chatbot UX design, one way or another. Therefore, in today's article, we'll take you through extensive guidelines on designing UX/UI for a good chatbot. Stay tuned.

Chatbots: What, Why, and Types!

Before we put our heads in the list of UX UI tips for chatbots, it's better to do some homework.

What are Chatbots?

Simply put- a chatbot is a computer program that can conduct communication in several forms with a human. It can be auditory or texture methods, but it has to be convincing enough to simulate human behavior.

But it has to be convincing enough ***

Here is a quick list of popular chat boxes-

Facebook Chatbot.
Hipmunk.
NatGeo Genius.
Whole Foods.
BabyCentre UK.
Duolingo.
MongoDB.
LeadPages.
TechCrunch.

Why are Chatbots New Dimensions for Businesses?

Broadly three factors drive businesses and services to adopt chatbot technology for their customer support.

Factor 1- It reduces customer service costs by a considerable degree. Once trained with proper user interaction techniques, it can replace human customer service agents. Perks? Millions of yearly cost reduction.
Factor 2- There have been several successful conversational-based chatbot systems lately. On that note, we can recall WeChat, which has put the interactional channel of businesses and services forward.
Factor 3- Voice-oriented personal assistants are becoming popular day by day. So, people are getting more used to interacting with AI-enthusiastic systems. Google's Google Home, Amazon's Alexa, and Apple's Siri are three of the most prominent examples.

How Many Types Are in There?

Simply, there are two major types of chatbots for business-

Customer Service Bots

Takes over the task of business interaction between customers and the customer support unit. Example: ‘Ask UPS' by UPS and ‘Ask Jenn' by Alaska Air.

Interaction Bots

These chatbots go beyond customer service and bring other forms of one-way and two-way interaction. As an example, the Chatbot from Domino's Pizza allows users to make orders. Another chatbot named Flo from Progressive can generate an auto insurance quote.

Chatbot UX Design: Process and Examples

Alright, so here goes the heart of this article, for which you've visited the page. We've noted down 7 of the most critical and actionable chatbot UX design strategies. Have a look-

The Voice Tone of the Chatbot

It doesn't matter if it's an auditory conversation or text-based; chatbots are supposed to replicate and replace a human-to-human interaction with a human-to-bot interaction. So, it's essential to keep the tone of the communication human-friendly.
For instance, a real customer and agent conversation can be analyzed. The voice tone, the vocabulary, and the body language must be imitated.
We know that chatbots can not get out of the preset conversation patterns. But you, as a designer, must be aware of how the conversation's tone affects the user's persona and experience.

Leverage User's Conversation History

This exciting step can make your chatbot far better than the ones from your competitor's inventory. And the idea is to leverage users' previous conversation history and cut unnecessary chit-chats.
Just by checking the previous chat history, you can let the chatbot mine out data like what product the user is working with, what payment method they prefer, etc. This practice will eventually personalize the user's experience and turn new customers into repeat customers.

Create User Flows

According to statistics, about 80 percent of adults and 91 percent of teenagers use chatbots daily. So, it's a massive amount of people that a chatbot has to deal will. But over hundreds of chatbots, just 33 percent of them can revolutionize new use cases. The rest don't know user flows and how to optimize them from real-time customer interactions.

When designing a chatbot, let it add some more value apart from talking to customers. While creating the user flow for the bot, let yourself go beyond the box as a designer and uncover some hidden benefits of texting.

Example? Have a look at the new chatbot designed by Adrian Zumbrunnen. It's a full-page welcome chatbot for the audience. With extraordinary user experience design, he'd been able to boost the traffic by a massive 100%!

Choose The Right Interaction Style

Chatbots can interact with users in a diverse range of ways. The first categorization comes with text and auditory interaction. Voice interaction has its terms and conditions. But when it comes to non-auditory interaction, there are two major options-

Interacting with Pre-determined Links and Buttons

This way, buttons, and links are displayed in a carousel, which might also include images. This saves the users from unessential typing, which saves a lot of time and effort for users to input data.

Interacting in a text-only method

It's quite old school that chatbots interact through text replies and questions. But there are certain perks in terms of dimensions of interactions. This also lets the chatbots and users deviate from the scripted chatbot algorithms.

Implement Linear Flow

One of the major purposes of interactional chatbots is to lead the users toward their desired data through a minimum number of tasks. The bots support these tasks and largely depend on acceptable user responses.

Bottom Line

So, this was a quick guide on improvising chatbot UI/UX design and getting more out of them for business. However, this technology is going through a process of revolution, and there is a lot more to discover in the future. Stay updated!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

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How to design a chatbot?

Designing a chatbot involves defining its purpose and goals, identifying the target audience, choosing a platform or framework, determining its capabilities, designing the conversation flow, developing its personality, implementing NLP and AI, testing and refining, deploying and monitoring, and continuously improving based on feedback.

What are the steps to create a chatbot?

The steps to create a chatbot include identifying the purpose and goals of the chatbot, defining the user flow and conversation design, selecting a chatbot platform or framework, implementing the chatbot's functionality and integration, and testing and refining the chatbot's design and performance.

What is the process flow for a chatbot?

The process flow for a chatbot typically includes greeting the user, identifying the user's intent, processing and responding to the user's input, and providing follow-up actions or suggestions.

What are the two main chatbot processes?

The two main chatbot processes are rule-based and machine learning-based. Rule-based chatbots rely on pre-defined rules and decision trees to determine how to respond to user input, while machine learning-based chatbots use artificial intelligence and natural language processing to learn from user interactions and improve over time.

Which methodology is used for chatbot development?

Chatbot development can be approached using various methodologies, including agile and design thinking. The agile methodology involves iterative development and testing in short sprints, while design thinking involves a human-centered approach to problem-solving and empathy for the user's needs.