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My chatbot is dead – Why yours should probably be too

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Re: My chatbot is dead – Why yours should probably be too

#41

Post by corobo »

dheera wrote: post #29
p1necone wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get current cursor position, and you can render things at arbitrary positions on the screen. Making this not possible would probably unnecessarily restrict your ability to build even actually useful things. Although hiding the real mouse cursor probably shouldn't be allowed without a permission dialog imo.

Yep the following part is fine with me, it's hiding the mouse cursor that is alienating. I would have thought it to be OK for a website to pick from a few standard system cursors (pointer, hand, I-bar, move, resize, etc.) but not no cursor.

If this gets traction please remember to allow hiding cursor if the user has full screened something! -- person trying to watch a video without a lil pointer in the way

Re: My chatbot is dead – Why yours should probably be too

#43

Post by TeMPOraL »

ben_w wrote: post #35
vertis wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find those chat boxes to be completely irritating. Doubly so if it doesn't go straight to a human, there are ones that want to shove you through the crappy zendesk "are you sure this helpdesk article doesn't answer your question" flow. Anything that pops up and interrupts me while I'm reading something else is pretty much a deal breaker. Having to stop what I'm doing to hit a little X and get back to it has cost a…

> I find those chat boxes to be completely irritating. The supermajority here does, or so I would guess. We aren’t representative, and that’s important to remember when designing user interfaces.

"Non-representativeness" is overused; we voluntarily take away our own voice about UX, and then complain that it sucks.

In context of UI annoyances and regular people, it's also worth remembering that the representative (i.e. not tech-savvy) population accepts what it's given. They don't have the mental models to conceptualize what exactly is it that annoys them, and they don't have a voice to express that annoyance. But they are annoyed, and you can hear that when you actually talk to them. The frequently heard things like "Why did they have to rearrange everything again?", "Google 'xyz contact form' because it's easier than finding it on the xyz site", or "My computer is slow it's probably viruses" are symptoms of that.

Re: My chatbot is dead – Why yours should probably be too

#44

Post by rawoke083600 »

Ohh how I hate chatbots !

It's the digital version of the "automated phone guidance thing". The "press 1 for sales, press 2 for accounts, press 9 to kill yourself" !

I think many of the "smaller" websites has been sold a lie ! I see "silly/useless bots" that only makes the customer mad instead of helping him.

Just to show I'm not all hate and brimstone :) I found adding a "manned whatsApp" to your website is gold !

Re: My chatbot is dead – Why yours should probably be too

#45

Post by tastroder »

dheera wrote: post #22
belzebalex wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought like you in the past. I only installed the Crisp chatbox (with no popup) on my SaaS and was very surprised with the results: I got more contact from users through it than through Email or Telegram. I got a lot of feedback and was able to help many potential customers. As developers who never need help, we tend to forget that some people might do, and that a Chatbox that annoys us can help them.

Sure, I love chat support interfaces and use them all the time. If I want support, that is. But not when I hit your site for the first time and just getting acquainted with your product. I just want to see your product materials at my own pace in peace. If you want me to see something different, change those materials to whatever you want your first impression to be. But don't accost me with a "can i help you" before…

> If I want support, that is.

Even then, too many sites replaced their point of contact with these trivial keyword kind of chat bot interfaces and it's annoying as heck.

I tried to report a phishing page hosted on some random SaaS thing yesterday. Instead of a contact form / abuse contact e-mail in the page footer I ended up on a FAQ page telling me to report it using their chat thing. Of course that chat was not staffed without any indication until you typed up a message (another frequent factor of annoyance for those not in US-adjacent time zones) and the keyword matcher asked me if the FAQ page I was on would be of any help. When I put the data in the thing to go on with my day it asked me for an e-mail to follow-up with me, something this interaction did not require.

Sure, I get when people get more customer interaction from these things but please folks, make sure it's not replacing functionality for other parts of your (potential) customer base.

Re: My chatbot is dead – Why yours should probably be too

#46

Post by GordonS »

dheera wrote: post #8

I absolutely despise those pop-up "Can I help you" boxes on product websites (usually Intercom). It completely disrupts my flow as a reader in trying to understand the product. That attention disruption got so bad I blocked Intercom and their ilk via injected CSS rules. I really want to take it a step further and write a plug in to interface a chat bot with the human on the other end and waste their time so sites beg…

The only ones I really despise are the ones that pop open as soon as you open the page - I haven't even read the damned page title yet, so no, I would not like to ask any questions or tell you anything about my requirements! Just.. go away!

Actually, the ones I really despise with a burning passion are the ones like above, but which follow you around the whole site like some kind of demented Clippy 2.0 - you close the popup and navigate to another page and... BAM! It's back, again!

Re: My chatbot is dead – Why yours should probably be too

#47

Post by TeMPOraL »

sdoering wrote: post #36
dheera wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I love chat support interfaces and use them all the time. If I want support, that is. But not when I hit your site for the first time and just getting acquainted with your product. I just want to see your product materials at my own pace in peace. If you want me to see something different, change those materials to whatever you want your first impression to be. But don't accost me with a "can i help you" before…

As a data analyst I have evaluated the performance of chatbots in particular and modals in general for several clients. And I can agree with you. There is actually nearly always a customer segment that finds chatbots and popups totally annoying. This usually ends up in this segment leaving the site disproportionately due to the modals, which leads to a loss of revenue. At the same time there is a segment (usually muc…

> And on the question of GDPR modals, I'm afraid I have to say that they are an absolute legal necessity.

They absolutely are not a legal necessity if you don't do things you shouldn't be doing. That's the point of GDPR :).

But of course doing these things, putting up the popups, and then trying to direct users' anger at Brussels is empirically the revenue-maximizing strategy, so here we are.

Re: My chatbot is dead – Why yours should probably be too

#48

Post by arkitaip »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #14
baxtr wrote: post #11

Chatbots are dead, long live chatbots! I firmly believe we are going through the “through of disillusionment” ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle ). We need to figure out ways to really bring value to people and not just raise money for the next AI based Chatbot system!

I'm not a user myself, but assistants (Alexa, Google's, Cortana, etc) are chatbots and seem to be quite in swing. Not as hyped as last year, but still.

Google Assistant actually works, especially it's speech recognition that has been near flawless for me. I can totally see it becoming an integrated feature in future housing constructions.

Re: My chatbot is dead – Why yours should probably be too

#49

Post by netsharc »

shajznnckfke wrote: post #7
Ennea wrote: post #3

I'd just like to point out how absolutely terrible that simulated mouse cursor on that site is. Feels very sluggish and weird. Please don't do this.

This site breaks other rules too. Zooming out doesn’t make the font smaller, but makes the column narrower while keeping the font the same size, reducing the amount of text per line (the opposite of what I wanted).

Wanted to jump to the comments complain about this.

Snark: Apparently anyone can call themselves UX/UI experts nowadays. I guess I shouldn't worry about getting qualifications and just slap that label onto my CV...

Re: My chatbot is dead – Why yours should probably be too

#50

Post by jamil7 »

dheera wrote: post #8

I absolutely despise those pop-up "Can I help you" boxes on product websites (usually Intercom). It completely disrupts my flow as a reader in trying to understand the product. That attention disruption got so bad I blocked Intercom and their ilk via injected CSS rules. I really want to take it a step further and write a plug in to interface a chat bot with the human on the other end and waste their time so sites beg…

Funny how the end result of all that Chatbot hype from 2017-2018 kinda just became these shitty Intercom boxes. My insurance company used an inapp chatbot around that time and I setup my account with it, that was a good experience but it didn't seem like a form would have been much different.
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