Chatbots Are Usually a Bad Idea
Conversational user interfaces (CUIs) are big right now—right at the top of the “hype cycle”—and you can’t move around the web without seeing the “Chat now” bubble in the corner of everything from banking and insurance apps through to online stores like Amazon and Apple.
CUIs are not in themselves a bad thing—they’re focused, simple, and widely understood by users. The problem is: what’s on the other end? Who is your user talking to?
Some of my best user experiences as a customer have come from using online chat: telling Amazon about a faulty product and getting an instant refund, or telling the electricity people that I need a new smart meter in a matter of minutes.
Do you want to know what some of my worst user experiences have been? Chatbots.
Figure 49.1: Let me know when there’s a good chatbot I can try
The key problem with chatbots is this...
