How Does Chatbot Conversational Search Need to be Designed in eLearning?
Published: 2021-02-22 12:02:58

A chatbot is a conversational user interface that is gaining a lot of attention these days. Chatbots and conversation interfaces are expected to make their mark in the eLearning industry as well. 
 
Conversations are intrinsic to our everyday life, the more an interface leverages its functionalities the better it enables the mind to translate the same into a coherent narrative.
 
<b><H2>What is a Conversational Interface?</b></h2>
A Conversational Search is an interface that enables computers to interact with humans using voice or text and mimics real-life human communication.
 
<b><i>“A conversational interface is the best model to engage and captivate our ever-more fleeting attention.”</i></b>

The primary advantage of the Conversational interface is that it helps fully leverage the inherent efficiency of spoken language.  In simple words, the user can search for questions, answers, or search for content that may help them answer a question or acquire a new skill.  

Chatbot offers the advantage that it can narrow down more specifics about the search by asking questions back to the user so that the search results are more relevant. 
 
<b><H2>How to Make a Great Conversational Search Interface?</b></H2>
A chatbot needs a good script, platform, name, and image for it to work. However, it is the purpose, personality, and functionality of the chatbot, that transforms the whole outcome. Multiple strategies are used to translate complex voice requests into a more structured pattern that a computer can understand.   
 
As opposed to the traditional keyword search, a conversational search system takes complex grammatical sentences and from the standpoint of previous interactions provides more useful and comprehensive results. 
 
In an attempt to improve the user experience or to increase the opportunities for your target audience to find your chatbot online it is essential to optimize it for the search bot of the search engine that the audience may use.  

<b><H2>Tips to consider while creating a Chatbot [Conversational User Interface]</b></H2>
Here are some of the best practices to optimize your chatbot for search and knowledgebase functionality successfully: 

<b><H3>1. Keywords:</b></H3>
keywords are paramount for improving discoverability among your potential audience. Ergo, it’s important to use them where it matters to facilitate a search bot to index your chatbot online and lead your audience to your chatbot. Keywords in the meta descriptions of your landing and about pages of your chatbot enable establishing discoverability. 
 
<b><H3>2. Professional help:</b></H3>
Leveraging the help of a professional with conversational design experience lends perspective, ensuring the bot is providing relevant answers to the questions that the user may have. Further, the designer can help provide different answers and include links to frequently asked questions to other relevant content on your site. 
 
<b><H3>3. Prototyping tools:</b></H3>
Prototyping design tools help create a functional chatbot that users and developers can test for errors. An error-free bot makes indexing and ranking online content way easier. Prototyping tools enable the visualization of your concept. 

<b><H3>4. Interaction style:</b></H3>
Both text and links/buttons could be used for inputting information into interaction chatbots, only the purposes are different. Predetermined links and buttons save the user from typing. These are usually displayed in a carousel and could include images. Texts allow the user flexibility in choosing the types of questions they wanted to ask. 
 
<b><H3>5. Question-and-Answer Tool:</b></H3>
Can scrape questions and answers from an existing FAQ while permitting a manual configuration of your customized list of questions and answers. 
 
<b><H3>6. A natural language processing (NLP) system:</b></H3>
Based on artificial intelligence techniques, to effectively analyze a user's message to determine the user’s intent or query.  
 
A combination of search, a question-and-answer tool, and a service such as an NLP processing system will help determine intent, extract entities and invoke more elaborate dialogues.  
 
New advances in artificial intelligence imply that automating tasks such as searching for information related to your job, a new skill, or a topic is easier than ever, and the benefits extend to both the information provider and the information seeker.  
 
For example, there are language chatbots now that enable users to learn a new language. Through the chatbot, one can learn how to perform everyday tasks in a language that one is trying to learn. Chatbots in the form of virtual tutors are available to make the learning interactive.  
 
An in-built dictionary helps to enhance the vocabulary. Some chatbots help in practicing listening and speaking skills as well. The learning is not just limited to understanding the basics of a language anymore. It is more complete, more natural, and human-like. Chatbots are the virtual tutors who guide the learner through the learning experience.  
 
Instancy Chatbot app is part of the Instancy Learning Experience Platform that enables you to build a chatbot and knowledgebase without writing any code. You can use frequently asked questions, documents, product manuals to build your knowledgebase.  
 
To learn more, visit <a href=""https://www.instancy.com/software-solution/"">Instancy Learning Platform Software & Apps!</a>