At The Root Of The Problem: Focusing On Tech And Neglecting Design

Chatbots have a bright future in the long term. But making the chatbot primarily an IT project is a recipe for failure. Design is a critical part of the equation and organizations overlook it at their own peril.
Here are just a few representative samples from what interviewees told us on this front:

“Don’t overspin on technology. A lot of companies assign chatbot initiatives to IT without people who understand content and conversation — and they fail.”
Ibrahim Khoury
Director Of Product Development And Innovation, Alight Solutions

“When you let a bunch of developers do it, you leave a lot on the table: You don’t have experience in design, you don’t have the understanding of the customer, you see the FAQ become the interaction, and that’s a problem. Don’t do it that way.”
Jen Snell
VP GTM, Conversational AI, Verint

“For companies that do it all without help from conversation experts, the outcomes are often less than stellar, to be diplomatic. It feels like a glorified IVR; it’s disappointing. Companies should bring their UX resources to bear.”
Jon Altschuler
Senior Director, Creative Services, Enterprise Bot Solutions, LivePerson

Enter Conversational Experience

Achieving success with chatbots necessitates design expertise at every stage of development. However, obtaining this expertise poses a challenge for many organizations.

Product and development teams often seek design assistance but struggle to garner attention due to the high demand for designers’ expertise. Alternatively, some organizations believe involving line-of-business colleagues is sufficient, but these individuals typically lack design proficiency.

Moreover, there’s often a lack of awareness among product and development teams regarding the full extent of designers’ capabilities. For instance, they may not grasp that information architecture primarily revolves around aligning with users’ mental models, rather than solely reconciling internal data structures.

The key to improving chatbot performance lies in committing to two critical aspects:

1. Embracing universal best practices rooted in human-centered design principles. Skills such as information architecture, discovery research, and interaction design are paramount for chatbot success and are foundational to the design discipline. However, according to Forrester’s Q4 2020 Global State Of Design Teams Survey, only 30% of respondents reported involvement in chatbot design, significantly lower than those working on website or app design. This gap underscores the need for change.
2. Adopting chatbot-specific best practices derived from conversation design, an emerging discipline. Conversation design delves into practical heuristics for crafting effective natural language interactions, enabling users to engage with chatbots seamlessly. This skill set is essential for facilitating user interaction with chatbots on their terms.

Organizations can assess their existing chatbot efforts by considering two fundamental questions:

1. What is the current stage of the chatbot implementation? Whether it’s at the conceptualization stage, prototyping phase, or already deployed, understanding the chatbot’s progress is crucial.
2. Is the scope of the chatbot initiative well-defined? Clearly defining the chatbot’s scope, particularly its set of intents—i.e., the requests it’s designed to handle—is vital for ensuring its effectiveness within a specific domain.

Map Your Answers To One Of Four Scenarios