The Government of Buenos Aires’ Chatbot
By: Nicolás Modesto
Tags: Chatbots, Microcopy, Conversional Design, Chatbot Design, Ux Writing

Summary

In this project as a UX Writer my goal is to be the Boti’s voice and help all people who live in the Capital of Argentina. Of course, I don’t work alone. This project is possible thanks to Be Bot team.

The government’s chatbot or “Boti”, as we call it, help the people who live or work in Buenos Aires. You can find it on the official web page or in WhatsApp and you can talk about:

Education

Help if you have familiar’s problems

Outdoor Sports

Public Spaces

Infractions

Permissions

Tedious procedures

Information and news about Buenos Aires

Healthcare system

Public Transports

The Goals Boti

As Emiliano Cosenza says: “Every chatbot should have a purpose” and the Boti’s purpose is being near the neighbor to help them with all they need. In some way, Boti tries to achieve the people feel the government supports.

The User

Boti lives to help and understand all the neighbors. It is a very difficult challenge because the users can be, for example, tourists who stay in the city for a couple days. At the same time, another user, who works in Buenos Aires, needs to know the subway combination for travel to his job. Or maybe, a resident needs help to find a park where he can train.

So, the chatbot has three challenges:

Understand very well the user’s needs

Write in a very simple way

Solve problems

If we want to achieve these challenges, we need to understand the neighbor’s intentions and answer with personality.

The intentions

Start from the beginning… what the fuck is an intention? According to Botmaker is:

“A structure which allows you to define the answers the bot is going to give the users. These answers depend on: questions, old conversations, phrases or words.”

Okay… this means that the intentions are the neighbors goals. For example:

“How can I register to be an independent worker?”, “Is it necessary to make the VTV ‘s procedures in person?” or “How can I make my passport online?

Every intention has “shooters” we know the users are going to use when they write in the chatbot. In the examples the shooters are: “Independent worker”, “VTV’s procedures”, “Passport”, “Online”. Sometimes the shooters are words and others are phrases.

I know what are you thinking. Is the Bot really Smart? Well…

The answer is no because the chatbot is trained for a human being to pretend to be smart.

The personalities

Every piece of content should be functional, understandable and usable before it has personality. I mean, we can’t make enjoyable content if the user can’t understand the idea to communicate.

Now, I want to talk about the Boti’s personalities.

Helpful

Decisive

Honest

Didactic

Helpful because his role is to serve the neighbor in any moment. Boti try to be part of the neighbor’s life as Alfred Pennyworth is part of Batman’s life. Somehow, Boti is Alfred for all the people who live or work in Buenos Aires. Really, I’m not joking. When we write, we think “How would Alfred say it?”

Decisive because he has to solve the user’s problems. If a neighbor starts a conversation with Boti and he has a problem, Boti has to solve it or give him tools to solve himself.

Honest because the user needs direct and honest information. He never judges people, understands his limitations and always is calm.

Didactic because the people need explanations without technicality. He is humble and explains step by step every answer as a teacher. He walked with the neighbor to the problem’s end.

My role and work process

In the team, we are three UX writers, two UX designers and a coordinator. My role is to be a UX Writer and my job is to transform every piece of communication in a language the user can understand, use and enjoy.

This job requires structure to define the Information Architecture and be rigorous with orthography and grammar.

The work process:

Understand what the client needs to communicate. (Our clients are in different government’s areas) Understand the original content Understand what the user needs Choose the personalities Design the content architecture Write a first version of the content Ask the team for feedback on grammar, orthography and personality Take the team’s feedback and ask the client for feedback Take the client’s feedback Ask the coordinator for the last feedback Take the coordinator’s feedback and give the developer’s team the content Test the content in different channels and deploy it

Challenges and limitations

We have some limitations, but we always solve it as a team.

I remember when we started with the project we had problems with different government’s areas. According to the process, we need their feedback to continue with corrections and deployment but our requirement didn’t take priority in the Government’s areas schedule. So, there were weeks with little work and weeks full of work because we had to write new content and, at the same time, correct old content.

When Boti was realized, the problem was solved. In a few weeks we were in the all Government’s areas schedule. Literally, we became Rock Stars.

Conclusions

Lessons learned

The synonyms doesn’t exist

In the last years working on this project I learnt all words are not equal. Every word has life of its own because every word has intention. It’s important to understand what we want to communicate and then use the correct word. My mentor Emiliano Cosenza always says:

“It’s not the same say ‘desnudarse’ que ‘desvestirse’ ni tampoco es lo mismo hablar de ‘mugre’ que ‘suciedad’…”

Women, children and content first

The product design is better if we start designing the content. Thinking in a website or an app as a conversation between the user and the site is easier than designing prototypes that we are not sure if it’s usable. The most important thing in a design product is not to lose the goal and if you start from the content, it isn’t going to happen.

Without Architecture Information there is no paradise

If you start writing without thinking in a structure is the same as making a house without construction plans. If your content isn’t structured, it isn’t scalable.

I always wrote on my way but when I started writing for the Government, I discovered that my way is perfect to design conversation between users and computers.

If you want to know my work and chat with Boti, you can enter in the government web site: https://www.buenosaires.gob.ar/