![]() Three people hovered over the helpful looking “i” on the upper right-hand corner when they got lost, but the hamburger menu never even registered to these observant users.Īnti-hamburger menu-ers, here’s example #1001 of hamburger menus failing. The information icon on the upper-right corner got more attention than the hamburger menu ever did. Out of 20 users we tested, only one even thought to click on this hamburger menu. Is it simple as just training the user to say “help” or “start over?” Will this prompt be part of the onboarding process, or at the end of an interaction? Or will the solution not be conversational at all, but simply another button on the interface? Kia Niro took an interesting approach to the onboarding process by using the carousel to explain how to use a Facebook Messenger chatbot. For conversational interfaces, the solution is still forming. In traditional GUIs, it has become second nature for us to look for the home button whenever we want a fresh start. Many users would complete a task effortlessly, and then ask, “So… where do I go from here?” Strive for consistency: provide a way back to the “main menu” somehow. If the chatbot can only partially parse certain formats, forgo the format altogether, and set expectations and provide examples of formats that your chatbot can process. Rather than attempting to give an illusion of high-level NLP (natural language processing) and then failing, you should set correct expectations that match your chatbot’s abilities.įunctionality trumps all. He would’ve had a better experience if he had never been given this expectation. He was bewildered by this inconsistency - why was his return date invalid, when it followed the same format as his departure date? Seeing that the Skyscanner chatbot accepted weekdays as inputs, a user typed in “Wednesday” as his departure date, which was successfully parsed to the correct date.Įmboldened by his previous success, he then typed in “Monday” when prompted for the return date, only to be met with an error response. ![]() The number one rule of Schneiderman’s “Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design” still applies to chatbots: Strive for consistency. Strive for consistency: don’t create expectations that the chatbot can’t meet. In hopes of establishing some usability guidelines for chatbots, I conducted guerilla user tests at a local university in Dallas, asking a total of 15 users to interact with one of three travel-related Facebook Messenger chatbots: Skyscanner, Hipmunk, and Kayak.įor each test, the users were asked to to 1) book a flight, 2) change the destination, and 3) change the departure and/or return dates.īelow are the key findings, observations, and themes that came out of the guerilla testing. ![]() Unfortunately, for chatbots, these guidelines are only sometimes applicable, and often irrelevant. Usability practices for graphical interfaces have been long standardized anyone looking to improve their websites are pointed to trusted guides like Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think containing well-established usability practices. Through our research and prototyping, it quickly became clear: Best practices for good UX in conversational interfaces are still yet to established. In 2016, we jumped on the chatbot bandwagon with enthusiasm. Lately, one of these technologies has been conversational interfaces. At Sabre Labs, we explore how exciting, up-and-coming technologies impact travel.
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