1. Writing your first
smart chatbot
Ajay Viswanathan, Software Engineer - Sigmoid
@MonadicNomad

2. Machines should work,
people should think
- Jim Henson

3. Human Communication
• Complex - subtext, sarcasm
• Rich - body language, gestures, intonation
• Evolved over millennia
• Higher dynamic range of expressions

4. Online Communication
• Stripped of any emotion
• Hacks like Emoticons, Emoji, Gifs
• Shorthand, lingo, buzzwords - underline the basic
human need to be conveyed efficiently

5. Messaging today
• Rich media - audio, video, images, ¯_(ツ)_/¯
• Async
• Easy to consume on the go
• Informal tone
• Always connected

6. Why Messaging Apps might
take over native apps
• Next evolution in messaging apps - building
functionality into them
• Apps are bulky, discoverability and maintaining
them is an issue
• Trend is to shift towards consistent interactions
• Apps have taken note and started moving out of
their silos and becoming integrable services

7. Your UI is your product’s
humble compensation for not
being telepathic
- @mortenjust

8. Why the sudden Bot
uprising?
• Preceding advancements in Machine learning,
Natural language processing, scalable computing,
massive API ecosystem, improvements in
messaging and notification systems

9. What is a Bot?
• The future of web design according to some
• A program to simulate conversation, to
• Find information
• Connect to resources
• Learn keywords
• Think about responses
• Bot != Conversational AI (not necessarily)

10. What makes a great
bot?
• Adds value of some kind
• Requires minimal input/direction
• Reliable, robust like standard software
• Relieves stress for humans
• Anticipates needs of users

11. Design principles
• Not Being Human - don’t try too hard to make them appear human. They can still
have a personality
• Keep it simple in functionality - Bots need to walk before they can run
• Be as smart as a puppy - Be endearing enough when failures occur and keep
learning
• Optimize for end-user and messaging medium
• Always have a human fallback mode
• {Structured input + Retrieval response} > {Freeform input + Generative response} -
We at not an acceptable reliability level for the latter
• Use feedback analytics and keep improving the user experience

12. Common pitfalls
• Don’t attempt to replace tasks better done by a human
• Don’t add a feature just because it is cool. It needs to
have business value
• Don’t keep winding conversations - anything more than
2 exchanges is a drag
• Avoid rhetorics, be neutral in tone
• Always have a “shut up” command for the bot

13. Before starting to develop a
Bot
• Define objectives
• Choose a domain/knowledge base for the Bot
• Select an appropriate personality
• Personality is often tied to domain
• Challenging medium because it is limited to just text
• Copywriter is king
• The future “UI” designer may never need to write HTML,
CSS rather be a comedian or literature major

14. Helpful tools
• Prototyping - Twine
• NLP - IBM Bluemix Watson APIs, NLTK, ScalaNLP
• Bots - Hubot, BotKit
• Client APIs - Slack, Facebook Messenger, Google
Hangouts

15. Simple architecture
• Raw input — Lexical parser —> Structured input
• Structured input — Functionality —> Domain
output
• Domain output — Persona —> Richer output
• Richer output — Client communication —> API
call to app

16. Demo: Uber Bot
• Domain
• Fetch user history of rides
• Book a cab
• Train bot to understand cab booking patterns and
anticipate bookings
• Personality
• Jesse Pinkman (:P)

17. References
• Introduction to Bots and basic principles - http://designmodo.com/chatbots-design/
• About how messaging is taking over the world - https://blog.intercom.io/messaging-apps-just-getting-started/
• How messaging would evolve in the future - https://blog.intercom.io/emoji-and-stickers-are-just-the-beginning/
• Priciples of bot design - https://blog.intercom.io/principles-bot-design/
• Funny article on the origins of BASAAP - http://berglondon.com/blog/2010/09/04/b-a-s-a-a-p/
• Developing chatbot personalities - http://www.fastcodesign.com/3054934/the-next-phase-of-ux-designing-
chatbot-personalities
• Flow of a bot application - http://www.a-i.com/show_tree.asp?id=61&level=3&root=1
• How to make a better bot - https://chatbotsmagazine.com/how-to-make-a-better-bot-c038626fd401#.gkgztq4sg
• How not to piss off users - https://medium.com/@andknf/3-tools-for-building-bots-that-people-won-t-tell-to-fuck-
off-584889eaf6b9#.x2th8d4v6
• Advanced Deep learning model for retrieval based systems - http://www.wildml.com/2016/07/deep-learning-
for-chatbots-2-retrieval-based-model-tensorflow/