Aug 8, 2017 · 2 min read
Amazing post Dmitry!
With your permission, just want to add some extra info about bot related trend. As the bot market has passed the stage of hype and starts to mature we can observe 3 main approaches right now:
- From NLP to NLU: one of the main point that Facebook uses to promote Chatbot was that Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology was good enough to understand all kind of user request. However, if you have interacted with a chatbot you know, it´s far from true.
Hence there is a new trend to evolve from NLP to NLU Natural Language Understanding. Many tech companies are throwing lots of money and resources to develop hard techs like reinforcement learning, AI negotiations capabilities to allow machines have a better understanding of user messages. - Voice Interface is hot: there is a lot of criticism about how Chatbot adds more taps and friction than conventional UI; consequently, it´s not convenient for users.
Like Golden Krishna stated, “the best interface is no interface,” many people are considering voice interface as a great approach to reduce friction of Chatbot.
Furthermore, with the proliferation of Smart Speakers like Amazon Echo, Google Home, Apple Homepod the use of voice is starting to become a standard. - Conversational Interface (CI): as companies realize that NLP has still a long way to go, there is a new approach to solving the problems from UX perspective. Instead of relying only on natural language interaction, with CI we can have a richer and more dynamic user experience.
In this category, the best example would be the bot platform of Slack, where they are betting big on UI elements like images, interactive buttons, and message menus.
The CI paradigm is also the vision we are holding at Landbot.io to help companies build conversational websites that offer unique experiences for each customer.
