Business Automation Beyond Self-Serve

Alex Bunardzic

DigitalExprt.com

14 June 2017, London, England

About the presenter

Holistic software developer

Holistic?

Taking all aspects of software development into consideration

50% analysis,

50% process,
50% engineering

Analysis: measure twice, cut once

Process: continuous delivery

Engineering: purity in programming (no side effects)

Analysis, process and engineering are not considered in isolation

These three activities influence and inform each other, resulting in 150% yield

Before Technology

The "Unwashed Masses"

Technology for the Masses

Technology == Self-serve

Convenient

Affordable Luxury

Technology Saves Time: At Our Disposal 24/7

Self-serve == Heavy Lifting!

Self Book-In

Self Check-In

Self-serve is great if it's your hobby

Self-serve is annoying if it's a chore

To avoid chores, we need to hire help

But hired help is expensive, and it's usually inconvenient

Technology to the rescue!

Download an app for a fraction of the price, and then do it yourself whenever it suits you!

Wait a minute -- legwork!

All this high technology is only making us do

a lot of work

Searching, scrolling, swiping, tapping, pushing buttons, dragging-and-dropping

Looks like a lot of work (and feels like a lot of work too)

Is there a way out of this technological

cul-de-sac?

We need a Wizard!

Remember this?

Did Wizards work smoothly?

Wizards tend to expect wizardry from end-users

The onus is on human users to not make a mistake

Are you sure you want to continue?

Are you sure you want to continue? error messages are NOT helpful!

Wizards are creating a lot of stress for users

Certainly nothing convenient about those wizards

Wizards ended up being just a sneakier version of yet another self-serve!

Pretend to be a helpful assistant, and then try to trick the users to do it themselves!

That way, avoid any responsibility if anything goes wrong

Is there a light at the end of the tunnel?

Chatbots!

Not really a light at the end of the tunnel

Chatbots propose to replace chores (searching, scrolling, swiping, clicking etc.) with simple chatting

But getting things done via chatting is much more cumbersome and tedious than via scrolling, swiping, dragging, dropping

Conclusion?

Chatbots are terrible for self-serve

Replacing already tedious self-serve apps with chatbots is the worst thing one can do for the users

It's like adding insult to an injury

Does that mean chatbots are useless?

Chatbots can be extremely useful, but NOT for self-serve activities

If not for self-serve, what can chatbots be useful for?

Full-serve, naturally!

Title Text

Example

I like to record myself playing various instruments and then mix the tracks

How do I do it?

Self-serve

I twiddle the knobs, slide the sliders, etc.

Imagine if, instead of twiddling the knobs, I was expected to chat with the sound mixing bot!

Utter disaster!

"Now, make that track louder. No, not loud like that! A bit less... No, too quiet now!! Undo. Undo. Undo..."

As tedious and frustrating GUI self-serve is, conversational self-serve is million times worse!

We need a full-serve software app -- bot

Something similar to this?

Well, why not? (providing that it is trainable ;)

But preferably someone with LOTS of experience!

How would I work with a sound engineer in real life?

I'd ask them to make my song sound like some other tracks I like to listen to. For example, I'd say: "Can you make my guitar sound more like Brian May on 'Bohemian Rhapsody'?"

The sound engineer would then use his/her vast experience to work on making my guitar sound similar to how the guitar sounds on the specified song(s)

Awesome! So why don't I do just that, instead of twiddling the knobs myself?

Real life experts tend to be pricey!

Technology to the rescue!

Make an app that specializes in sound mixing and mastering

Make it so that it can take descriptive requests 

Something like: "Could you make this track sound as if it was produced in late 1970s?"

The app SHOULD NOT expect detailed arguments, parameters and values from the user!

Same as sound engineers do not expect clients to tell them how loud the tracks should be or what amount of reverb etc. to apply

Once such expert app gets built, put conversational interface on top of it

Voila! You got yourself a full serve chatbot!

Your customers can now converse with the bot and ask it to make their creations sound the way they expect them to

Of course, the chatting will go back-and-forth, but NOT in a self-serve fashion

The chatting will rather serve to clarify the expectations

The bot may ask: "By 'the late 1970s sound', did you mean disco or new wave or soul/funk?"

The user may reply "funk" and then sit back and enjoy the full-serve!

No need for any additional, annoying chit-chat

Less is better

Even simpler example: hiring a gardener

It's not unusual to hire a gardener and then just tell them: "Make my garden look great!"

A lot of us hardly know more about gardening than just "I'd like my garden to look nice"

So we hire a reputable gardener to make that happen for us

How much interaction is needed with a qualified gardener?

Hopefully, very little past the initial discussion

Gardener at work is a good example of a full-serve experience

Users express their wishes and then step back enjoying the service

This same model must be utilized when designing/building chatbots

A gardener that requires a lot of interaction and hand holding is not only useless, but also annoying!

Asking for instructions each step of the way means that the service provider is incompetent

Exact same principles apply to chatbots

If a chatbot keeps annoying the user with endless "now what should I do?", it is obviously incompetent

Users will abandon such chatbots in a hurry

To Summarize

When doing chores, we prefer to hire experts

Since experts are expensive, we are forced to dabble in the DIY projects

Technology to the rescue!

Utilize machine learning/neural nets tech to build expert systems

Digital experts

Once the expert system/digital expert gets built, endow it with conversational interface

Leverage economies of scale and offer full-serve expert service for a fraction of the price

And remember: don't make wizards!

https://medium.com/bots-for-business

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