tech writers, chatbots need you! - summercon.tekom.eu€¦ · truly conversational interfaces are...
TRANSCRIPT
Tech writers, chatbots need you!
Maaike GroenewegeConvocat.nl
Relax, what canpossibly go wrong?
Hi, I'm MaaikeAnd this is my journey ☺
2001 - 2016Dutch Air traffic controlTechnical writerContent management
Career
Dutch ATC: complex, safety-critical
● 70 handbooks (procedures,
emergency procs, systems,
training)
● 40 user roles, 5 units (TWR, APP,
ACC etc.)
● Monthly changes for all pubs
● 8 full-time writers
● Eluxis component content
management
2016ABN AmroBusiness analistRPA
2017ThiemeMeulenhoffInformation
analistDigital education
2018NSInformation analistTimetable software
2001 - 2016Dutch Air traffic controlTechnical writerContent management
Career
Is this it?Is this me?
2016ABN AmroBusiness
analistRPA
2017ThiemeMeulenhoffInformation
analistDigital education
2018NSInformation analistTimetable software
April 25th, 20192001 - 2016Dutch Air traffic controlTechnical writerContent management
Career
25 april 2019Chatbot conference
@Utrecht
Chatbots
Talking to a virtual assistant. Web,
whatsapp, FB messenger
Voice interfaces
Google assistant, Amazon alexa, speech
interfaces on everyday objects
Jens, NS
Customer service:
● Answer ‘easy’ customer
questions
● Collect information for
live agents
WHO COVID-19 bot
● Set the standard for
COVID-19 chatbot
content
● 12 million users
through Whatsapp and
Viber
● Facebook messenger:
potential reach of
4.2 billion people
…so what’s there to design?
Oops…
Oops…
Most conversationalproblems are caused by design, not by technology
Conversation designer
What skills does a conversational designer need?
Conversationdesigner skills
Writing
Human factorsICT
Writing
● Support
● Succesful task completion
● Succinct
● Disambiguation
● Error recovery
(replika.ai)
Analysis
● Truly conversational interfaces
are non-linear
● You never know what your
customer is going to say
● A well-designed bot contains
numerous flows, which allow our
customers to navigate through
various paths in the bot
Hmm…
Psychology
When people talk to each other, they have an implicit
agreement that they are going to understand each
other, and will do their best to make this happen.
Paul Grice - Co-operative principle
4 Maxims
● The maxim of quantity, be informative, give as much
information as needed.
● The maxim of quality, be truthful, don't lie or
make things up
● The maxim of relation, be relevant to the topic
● The maxim of manner, be as brief, clear and orderly
as you can. Avoid ambiguity.
Psychology
● Bot persona (if you don’t think
of one, your customers will)
● Tone of voice
● Context
Make sure that your bot doesn't
become too human, or you'll end up
in the uncanny valley and things
go creepy!
But what really sparked joy…
w00t…Linguistics!
(I'm a theoretical linguist)
Basic bot architectureUsers enter requests in their
own language
NLP recognizes the intent of a question. Context
and entities help further refining the question
Bot returns a response.
And of course…tech comm!
MinimalismCarroll & van der Meij, Minimalism
beyond the Nurnberg Funnel
● Action oriented: users
want to do
● User-centered design
● Task-based
● Support exploration, error
recognition en recovery
Single sourcing& re-useAnn Rockley,
Enterprise content management
● Content = data
● Define semantic
building blocks
● Determine granularity
● Write once, use many
● Component-based
Current situation for many chatbots
● No support for information architecture
● No component content management support
● No workflow support
● No structural re-use, copy-paste at best
● No metadata
● No multichannel publishing
● No content release management or publising workflow
Tech writers are made for this!
Oh dear…
Schrijven
Modelleren
Creativiteit
Fonologie
Voice
User centered design
Storytelling
Natural language processing Spraak & Intonatie
Conversationeleanalyse
UX
ICT
Component content
management
O jee…
But now what?
Only 20 more years until retirement!
2019:
● Learnlearnlearnlearnlearn
● August: founded Women in Voice NL
● October: Jens (NS chatbot) live
● November 22nd: start convocat.nl,
1 day a week.
● Next?
February 1st
Start my own company!
● Conversation design
and coaching
● Conversational UX for
software suppliers
● Conversational
architecture
● Voice consultancy
And then…COVID-19
Crazy times!
● Forced to stay inside, so I
networked online & found great
communities.
● Companies had their helpdesks
flooded, great market for
chatbots!
● I love what I do, and
apparently people notice.
Work so far…
● Conversational consultancy for
software company
● Technical writing! ☺
● Conversation designer & coach
for Dutch Chamber of commerce
● Member of Die Lautmaler
Kollektiv
● Voluntary work for Dutch
heritancy story telling
● Lots of presentations like
these!
You want to get started too?
Best place: start building a bot yourself!
Voicebots:
www.dialogflow.com
www.voiceflow.com
https://console.actions.google.com
https://developer.amazon.com/en-
US/alexa
If you like coding:
www.rasa.org
www.jovo.tech
Chatbots:
www.flow.ai
www.engati.ai
www.drift.com
Prototyping (both voice & chat)
www.botsociety.com
www.botmock.com
Communities
Women in Voice:
www.womeninvoice.org
Empowering women and minority
genders who work in voice and
speech tech.
Chapters in US, UK, Netherlands,
France, Germany, Italy, Spain,
Mexico, Japan, Brazil
Communities
#Voicelunch
register.voicelunch.com and
www.discussvoice.com
Community of international voice
enthusiasts who meet every
Tuesday, 18:00 CET.
Local Voicelunches in Netherlands,
Spain, France, India
Books
● Cathy Pearl, Designing Voice User Interfaces: Principles of Conversational
Experiences
● Giangola et al: Voice User Interface Design: User Interface Design
● Rachel Batish: Voicebot and Chatbot Design: Flexible conversational
interfaces with Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Facebook Messenger
● Robert Moore: Conversational UX Design: A Practitioner's Guide to the
Natural Conversation Framework
The sheer joyfulnessOf finding out what drives youAnd doing just that
Maaike Groenewege
www.convocat.nl
www.linkedin.com/maaike.groenewege
www.twitter.com/maaikegee
Thank you!