Some good conversational UI examples to learn from

December 19, 2016December 22, 2016 marcabraham1 Comment

It was Dennis Mortensen – CEO/Founder of x.ai – who made me aware a few years ago of the concept of ‘invisible interfaces’. He talked about applications no longer needing a graphical user interface (GUI), taking “Amy” – x.ai’s virtual personal assistant as a good example (see Fig. 1 below).

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Fig. 1 – Amy, x.ai’s virtual assistant – Taken from: http://www.agilenetnyc.com/business/x-ai/

Since then, I’ve been keeping more of an eye out for bots and virtual assistants, which can run on Slack, WeChat, Facebook Messenger or Amazon Echo. Like “Amy” these applications can be driven entirely by complex machine learning algorithms, or can be more ‘smoke and mirrors’ and operated entirely by humans. Let’s just have a look at some relevant examples to illustrate where I think some of these virtual assistants and chatbots are heading.

Example 1 – Nordstrom Chatbot and Operator offering personalised discovery:

US based Nordstrom recently launched its first chatbot for the 2016 holiday season. If you’re already on Facebook Messenger or Kik, Nordstrom’s virtual assistant is only a click away. Users who engage with Nordstrom’s bot will be asked a number of questions about who they’re shopping for. The bot will then respond with bespoke gift suggestions based on the user’s responses.

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Fig. 2 – Nordstrom Chatbot – Taken from: https://chatbotsmagazine.com/the-complete-beginner-s-guide-to-chatbots-8280b7b906ca#.l5e2i887r

You can get a similar experience using Operator, which is driven entirely by human experts who’ll provide you with personalised advice on what to buy (see Fig. 3 below).

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Fig. 3 – Operator’s experts providing tailored advice to its users – Taken from: https://www.operator.com/

Example 2 – KLM sharing flight information via Facebook Messenger:

KLM, the well known international airline, now enables customer to receive their flight documentation via Facebook Messenger. After booking a flight on KLM’s website, customers can choose to receive their booking confirmation, check-in details, boarding pass and flight status updates via Messenger. It’s built on a Messenger plug-in which customers only have to enable in order to receive ‘personalised’ messages from KLM (see Fig. 4 below).

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Fig. 4 – Screenshot of KLM’s Messenger app – Taken from: https://messenger.klm.com/

Example 3 – Telegram using buttons for discovery and shortcuts:

As much as it’s great to have a very simple ‘single purpose’ conversational user interface, there are messenger apps and virtual assistants out there that do offer user functionality that works better with buttons to click. A good example is the Telegram app, which has buttons for specific actions and shortcuts (see Fig. 5 below).

Fig. 5 – Screenshot of the buttons in Telegram’s messenger app – Taken from: http://alistapart.com/article/all-talk-and-no-buttons-the-conversational-ui

Main learning point: I’ll no doubt learn more about conversational user interfaces over the coming months and years, but looking at simple examples like x.ai, Nordstrom’s Chatbot, Operator, Telegram and KLM’s Messenger feels like a very good starting point!

Related links for further learning:

App review: Abra

October 3, 2016 marcabraham3 Comments

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The main reason why I’m excited about Abra – a US-based peer-to-peer payments startup – is that people become tellers or ‘human ATMs’ who expense cash at hand to the recipient. The Philippines is a key target market for Abra, and it facilitates seamless payments between residents of the US and the Philippines.

Recent stats show that about two-thirds of the adult Philippine population is still unbanked. Currently, Filipinos will have to go to a local exchange ‘business’ (often a one-man band or small operation that does foreign exchange as one of its activities), fill out paper forms to send or receive money abroad. This can be very time-consuming, costly or unreliable.

Abra’s mission is to change all this and make cross-border peer-to-peer payments as easy and seamless as possible. This is how they do it:

Deposit money into the Abra app – Users can deposit money into the Abra app either via a linked bank account, or by using Abra’s network of Abra Tellers, which are like human ATM machines (see Fig. 1 below). Each Teller will set their own fee with the customer, after which the Teller and the customer will meet up in person to accept a cash deposit and credit the customer’s account with funds (or vice versa, if the user wants to cash out) (see Fig. 2 below).
Convert into Bitcoins – After a user’s account is credited with the necessary funds, the money is instantly converted to bitcoin behind the scenes, but still denominated in a traditional currency. What I like about Abra is that it doesn’t really talk that much on its website or its other comms about using bitcoins to underpin these payments. Abra, however, does use bitcoins and shared ledgers to facilitate peer-to-peer transactions without the need for an intermediary.
Send and withdraw money – Customers can use the Abra app to send and withdraw money, or buy things online where Abra is accepted by the seller. The company generates revenue by charging a .25 percent fee to a customer upon transacting with an Abra Teller.
You don’t need a bank account – One of the key upsides of Abra in my opinion, is that you don’t need to have a bank account to do a transaction through the platform. Competitors like Simple and Venmo still require users to add their bank accounts, whereas Abra let’s people transact without the need for a bank account.

Main learning: I’m really excited about innovations like Abra; using bitcoins and blockchain technology to solve a real-world problem and enabling unbanked people transact easily and cheaply.

Fig. 1 – Add money through Abra – Taken from: http://fintechranking.com/2015/03/05/why-we-started-abra/

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Fig. 2 – Finding and engaging with Abra Tellers – Taken from: https://techcrunch.com/2015/09/10/abra-raises-12m-in-series-a-funding-for-its-bitcoin-based-remittance-service/

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App review: PayKey

September 20, 2016 marcabraham1 Comment

I recently came across PayKey and have been intrigued since in the combination between banking and social media. PayKey’s vision is “to make payments in all social chat possible.” To this end, PayKey provides a secure payment keyboard which people can use when they’re in a social network of choice (Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, WeChat, Twitter, etc. – see Fig. 1 below).

Fig. 1 – PayKey Startup Pitch at the Mobile Monetisation Summit 2015 – Taken from: http://www.slideshare.net/IsraelMobileSummit/paykey-startup-pitch-at-the-mobile-moentization-summit-2015-startup-contest

The first step is for users to include payment functions in your keyboard.

As soon, as you’ve included the payment capability, you start the payment flow within the messaging service. This enables you to pay to any people within your social network on the messenger service of choice.

The penultimate step involves choosing an account to send to a contact, setting limits that work for you.

Once you authorise the payment, the specified amount will be sent. The authentication that takes place here is one of the critical components of PayKey. PayKey is linked to existing bank payment systems, which means no changes to their current security practices. In addition, users can also choose a unique identifier (e.g. Twitter account detail) to connect with their bank account, making it easier to connect with your bank account.

Main learning point: Companies like PayKey are making the experience around making payments a lot more intuitive. Instead of relying on customers to go where their banks are, PayKey enables customers to connect with banks where a lot of their daily interactions already take place – social networks and messenger apps. Don’t be surprised if Facebook launches a very similar service soon!

Related links for further learning:

CommonBond, learning about marketplace lending

January 23, 2016 marcabrahamLeave a comment

I recently came across CommonBond, an online student loan platform in the US, co-founded by David Klein. In a recent podcast, David explained how the idea for CommonBond came up when he himself had to get a loan to finance his Master’s Degree at Wharton Business School. When doing so, David discovered a few things: “rates were unnecessarily high”, “the process (of getting student loans, MA) was opaque and unnecessarily complex” and “the service was pretty poor.” Together with two co-founders, David founded CommonBond, which he describes as a “marketplace lending platform which to date has focused specifically on student debts.”

Marketplace lending is effectively the same as peer-to-peer lending; instead of a bank lending you money, it’s another user (this can be a person or a private company) lending you the money. Companies like CommonBond, Lending Club, On Deck and Kabbage all act as a marketplace, providing the technology to connect borrows and lenders.

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It was interesting to hear Dave talk about the two main goals that underpin CommonBond’s proposition. Firstly, to lower the cost for graduate students in getting a loan. Secondly, making the experience of getting a loan as easy and speedy as possible. Dave pointed out that the plan behind CommonBond is to eventually expand beyond student loans, supporting borrowers throughout different stages of their life.Currently, the lion’s share of CommonBond’s business comes from refinancing existing loans, but it aims to issue more direct loans to students in the coming months.

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In the podcast, Dave talked about marketplaces starting off with a single asset class e.g. mortgages or credit cards, and then branching out into multiple classes. His view is that there’s a shift happening from ‘unbundling banking products’ to ‘re-bundling banking products.’

In that light, it was interesting to learn that CommonBond recently secured so-called “warehouse lines” from established financial institutions like Barclays and Macquarie Capital. The term “warehouse loan” refers to a loan made and would be repaid as it was securitised and bundled into a broader portfolio that is sold in secondary markets like the New York Stock Exchange or London Stock Exchange.

Main learning point: When looking at the CommonBond site and from listening to Dave Klein, it strikes me how CommonBond is really making an effort to make applying for a loan as simple and as intuitive as possible. Klein refers to Nordstom and Zappos. I love how CommonBond aims to disrupt the traditional way of obtaining loans, starting with student loans but looking to roll their approach out to other loan types in the future.

Related links for further learning:

Coravin – great tech even if you’re not a wine drinker

October 11, 2015 marcabrahamLeave a comment

I’m a teetotal and I don’t have the faintest clue about drinking wine. However, I was intrigued by a new technology called Coravin. The problem that Coravin intends to solve is that once you uncork a wine bottle, and unless you finish the bottle in one go, the quality of the wine is likely to deteriorate. The technology that Coravin uses keeps the cork in the bottle, where it’s been since the bottle was sealed. As a result, you will be able to “pour glasses whenever you like, and know that instead of oxidizing, the remaining wine will continue to age naturally.”

These are the main components of the Coravin technology, which I took from the Coravin website:

Main learning point: Last year, Coravin decided to temporarily stop the sales of their product, after receiving reports of 13 wine bottles breaking under pressure, even resulting in a two chipped teeth and a cut that needed stitches … Coravin dealt with this serious issue by halting all sales, only resuming business as usual after it had sent a repair kit to all existing Corvin owners. I haven’t tested the technology myself, but I’m very excited about the idea behind Coravin as it provides a very innovative solution to a well-known and longstanding problem.

Related links for further learning:

Book review: “The Laws of Simplicity”

August 1, 2015July 31, 2015 marcabraham1 Comment

“Simplicity” almost feels like a magic word, particularly when you’re a product manager or a designer. Last year I wrote about the rise of single purpose apps and mentioned John Maeda’s “Laws of Simplicity”. John Maeda is a well known graphic designer, computer scientist, investor and academic. He’s also an author and I recently read his most popular book, “The Laws of Simplicity”. In this great book, John has outlined 10 laws which define what simplicity actually means and how can you can apply its underlying principles in every day life.

I’ll outline Maeda’s “Ten Laws of Simplicity” and highlight the things I’ve learned from reading his book:

Reduce – “The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction”: In short, “reduce” is all about removing functionality as the simplest way to create simplicity. Maeda advises “When in doubt, just remove, but be careful of what you remove.” Maeda uses the “SHE” framework to help make thoughtful reductions (see Fig. 1 below).
Organisation – “Organisation makes a system of many appear fewer”: In order to help people seeing the wood from the trees, Maeda introduces another acronym: “SLIP”. SLIP stands for: Sort, Label, Integrate, Prioritise (see Fig. 2 below).
Time – “Savings in time feel like simplicity”: The underlying idea about reducing the user frustration caused by time wasted. When any interaction with products or services happens quickly, we attribute this efficiency to the perceived simplicity of experience. If speeding up a process isn’t an option, Maeda suggests that giving extra care to a customer will make the experience of waiting more tolerable.
Learn – “Knowledge makes everything simpler”: Maeda introduces another acronym here, called “BRAIN”. BRAIN stands for: Basics, Repeat, Avoid, Inspire, Never (see Fig. 3 below). He also points out that the best designers are those who marry function with form to create intuitive experiences that we understand immediately.
Differences – “Simplicity and complexity need each other”: The more complexity there is in the market, the more that something simpler stands out. While technology is growing in complexity, there’s a clear benefit to differentiating by offering products which are simple and easy to use. That said, establishing a feeling of simplicity in design requires making complexity consciously available in some explicit form.
Context – “What lies in the periphery of simplicity is definitely no peripheral”: This law relates to a common trade-off between providing people with direction versus leaving them to explore for themselves. “How directed can I stand to feel?” versus “How directionless can I afford to be?”
Emotion – “More emotions are better than less”: Even though simplification is the core premise of Maeda’s book, he makes the case for adding functionality – and thus violating the first law of “Reduce” – arguing that this is allowed for the “right kind of more: feel, and feel for.”
Trust – “In simplicity we trust”: The law of “trust” is about the tension between the effort required to learn about a system on the one hand and the trust offered by the system on the other.
Failure – “Some things can never be made simple”: Maeda acknowledges that not all attempts to create simple products will succeed. He states that “there’s always an ROF (Return on Failure) when you try to simplify – which is to learn from your mistakes.”
The One – Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful: The tenth and last law of simplicity is to capture a number of ideas which Maeda felt didn’t fit neatly into a single law. He therefore devised three “keys”: Away, Open and Power (see Fig. 4 below).

Main learning point: Even though “The Laws of Simplicity” was published nearly ten years ago, its content still feels incredibly timely and relevant. If anything, for me the book makes it clear that ‘simplicity’ is not as straightforward as it might sound. Maeda provides some key principles that underpin the concept of simplicity, whilst being honest about some of the challenges involved in simplifying products.

Fig. 1 – SHE (Shrink, Hide, Embody) – Taken from: John Maeda, The Laws of Simplicity

Shrink: As technology is shrinking, i.e. becoming ‘smaller’ and yet more powerful, this approach is about designs conveying the impression of being smaller, lesser and humbler. This means that as a user your expectations of the product will still be fulfilled even though you might not think so, purely from looking at the product.
Hide: “Hide the complexity through brute-force methods.” The Swiss army knife is a great example of this technique since only the tool that you wish to use is exposed, while the other blades and drivers are hidden.
Embody: Maeda makes the point that as features go into hiding and products shrink, it becomes ever more important to embed the product with a sense of the value that is lost after Shrink and Hide. It’s about creating the perception of quality, which can be done through marketing or product design.

Fig. 2 – SLIP (Sort, Label, Integrate, Prioritise) – Taken from: John Maeda, The Laws of Simplicity

Sort: Sort and group information
Label: Each group needs a relevant name
Integrate: Whenever possible, integrate groups that appear significantly like each other
Prioritise: Using Pareto’s 80/20 rule is a helpful tool when deciding where to start

Fig. 3 – BRAIN (Basics, Repeat, Avoid, Inspire, Never) – Taken from: John Maeda, The Laws of Simplicity

BASICS are the beginning
REPEAT yourself often
AVOID creating desperation
INSPIRE with examples
NEVER forget to repeat yourself

Fig. 4 – Three keys (Away, Open, Power) – Taken from: John Maeda, The Laws of Simplicity

Key 1 – Away: The main principle here is that “more appears like less by simply moving it far, far away.” When you do outsourcing or moving a task it’s important to retain a level of communication with this task.
Key 2 – Open: “Openness simplifies complexity.” Examples of this approach are “open source” technology and Application Programming Interfaces (‘APIs)’. Public availability is the main characteristic that both examples have in common.
Key 3 – Power: “Use less, gain more.” This principle is quite literally about the dependency on (battery) power for a lot of devices and technologies. The idea is that not having enough (battery) power doesn’t necessarily need to be total disaster: “in the field of design there is the belief that with more constraints, better solutions are revealed.”

Related links for further learning:

Image credits: http://www.tedxtokyo.com/en/talk/john-maeda/

App review: Meerkat

March 11, 2015March 15, 2015 marcabraham1 Comment

The other day is saw a discussion about whether Meerkat will or won’t last. Meerkat is a simple video app which lets people stream live to their Twitters. It launched about two weeks ago and has been talked about (and used) a lot since. Let’s do a quick review of the app:

How did the app come to my attention? – Simple. My wife told me about Meerkat about a week ago. I also came across the app on ProductHunt.
My quick summary of the app (before using it) – This app lets me stream live to my Twitter follows.
How does the app explain itself in the first minute? – The first time I open the app, there’s a screen that introduces Meerkat’s ‘rules of conduct’, explaining that “Everything that happens on Meerkat, happens on Meerkat” and thus making it clear that my Meerkat recordings will be shared on Twitter (see Fig. 1 below).
How does the app explain itself in the first minute – The Meerkat login screen says “Tweet Live Video”, which clearly suggests that I’ll be able to tweet live video streams. At the top of my personalised screen I see a text field which says “Write what’s happening …” with two big calls to action – “schedule” and “stream” – underneath (see Fig. 2 below). I’m not quite clear about what will happen when I write something in the text box, or what to expect when I click on “schedule” or “stream”. Nor am I clear on why certain posts appear under the “upcoming” header; I’ve got three upcoming streams from Index Ventures in there, but I don’t understand where these posts have come from. Are they based on Twitter accounts that I follow or are they just placeholders to deal with an initial ‘cold start’ problem? Also, I know I’m not a designer but the light grey font used for the “upcoming” header doesn’t work particularly well against a dark grey background in my opinion.
Getting started, what’s the process like – I type in “Playing with Meerkat” (see Fig. 3 below) and then click on “schedule” to put in a time that works for me (see Fig. 4 below). Et voila, a tweet announces my live stream and off we go (see Fig. 5 below).
How easy to use was the app? – Fairly easy. I guess I personally could have done with a bit more to better understand how Meerkat works and perhaps see some examples of other live streams. For people like me who don’t do video that frequently or who are who conscious of the things they share on Twitter, a bit more context on the app would be helpful. For instance, I can see on the Meerkat leaderboard that Nir Eyal, who I know and trust, is an avid Meerkat user (see Fig. 6 below). It would be good to see some of Nir’s video streams directly from the app.
How does the app compare to similar apps? – Qik, which is now part of Skype, and Periscope, which is currently in private Beta are similar to Meerkat in a sense that enable live video streaming from a multitude of devices. It will be interesting to see what Periscope will look like when it goes live and to learn how easy to use the app is in comparison to Meerkat.
Did the app deliver on my expectations? – Yes. The app is simple – perhaps a bit too simple in places – and does exactly what it says on the tin, nothing more and nothing less.

Main learning point: It will be interesting to see what Meerkat’s usage is like once the current hype has subsided and once competitors like Periscope have entered the fray. The app is easy to use, but I feel it could yet do more in terms of its explanatory interface and enabling users to discover content. Considering that this is only the first release of Meerkat, it feels like a good and effective product.

Fig. 1 – Screenshot of the Meerkat screen which introduces the Rules of Meerkat

Fig. 2 – Screenshot of my personalised screen on Meerkat

Fig. 3 – Screenshot of my personalised screen on Meerkat after I’ve typed in something in the free text field

Fig. 4 – Scheduling my live video stream via the Meerkat app

Fig. 5 – Screenshot of my tweet announcing my live video stream on Meerkat to my Twitter followers

Fig. 6 – Screenshot of the leaderboard on the Meerkat app

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As I learn …

This site is about everything digital, giving an update on new things as I learn

Category: Online Trends

Some good conversational UI examples to learn from

App review: Abra

CommonBond, learning about marketplace lending

Coravin – great tech even if you’re not a wine drinker

Book review: “The Laws of Simplicity”