7 Qualities of “The Ideal ChatBot”

7 Qualities of “The Ideal ChatBot”

Tonight I found myself thinking about what makes a good chatbot and that rumination gave birth to the following list that I think makes for a pretty good chatbot. The kind that you will be not just your obedient automaton but also a trusted confidante.

A good chatbot must be:

1. Intuitive 
2. Coachable and eager to learn
3. Contextually smart
4. An effective communicator
5. Reliable
6. Well-connected
7. Secure

I will describe what I mean by each of these in detail now:

• Intuitive — An ideal chatbot should be intuitive in that it shouldn’t be too complicated in the way we converse with it and in the way it disseminates information. It should have a clear, understandable, intuitive vocabulary and grammar. It shouldn’t try to do too many things, and when possible, delegate to other bots or people.
• Coachable and eager to learn — It should be easy to coach a chatbot. One shouldn’t have to repeat new information too many times, and hence it should be able to learn from it’s relevant conversations. Easier said than done since separating the husk from the grain isn’t always straight-forward.
• Contextually smart — It should understand, interpret and derive context as much as it reliably can.
• An effective communicator — A chatbot must not communicate too much nor should it communicate too little. Finding just the right amount of communication is an art the bot developer may have to go through several iterations to master.
• Reliable — The bot should not be prone to errors, delays and confusions. It should be backed by well-designed, potentially state-machine backed software as well as reliable hardware which is capable of async-processing. It should be able to communicate any delays in processing, failures or successes to the user(s) in a timely manner. The user should be kept informed every few seconds of the state of things.
• Well-connected — A chat should ideally be well-connected, although this may not be a strict requirement for standalone chatbots (although one may feel sad for a standalone bot as no bot is an island ! ). By well-connected I mean that a bot should be able to communicate with other bots, services and people and invite them into conversations when necessary. A well-behaved bot may have a better chance of having it’s invitations accepted.
• Secure — Last, but definitely not the least, bots must be secure as well as respect security. Only authorized personnel or bots should be able to converse with the chatbot as well as the chatbot must not be allowed unauthorized access to any other services or bots.

Love to hear more comments about other features that may help the design of our chatbot friends.