Adding a Marketplace for Shared skills and Elevating the Build panel
OVERVIEW
As Botco.ai grew, ensuring consistency in bot building and deployment became crucial. The goal was to have a scalable and time-efficient chat-building solution that could be utilized by all team members, regardless of their expertise in bot building.
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Problem
Botco.ai aimed to quickly and effectively construct and launch chatbots. Currently, the process relies on the Customer Success team custom-building each bot, which complicates onboarding for new users, lacks scalability, and is inefficient and time-consuming, jeopardizing long-term viability.
Goal
With clients often requiring similar content, there was potential for reuse across multiple projects with minor modifications. Our goal was to implement a scalable and time-efficient solution accessible to all team members, regardless of their level of expertise in bot building
Solution
Shared skills were crafted with a focus on incorporating reusable components or functionalities within specific flows. This design aimed to ensure consistency, efficiency, scalability, improved collaboration among teams, and enhanced user familiarity, even without direct involvement in bot building. As a result, it led to a smoother development process and a more cohesive user experience.
I independently managed the design process, collaborating with the CX, PM, and Engineering teams.
After
Before
UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM
Before Botco brought on a product designer, the product was first developed by a developer, resulting in a complex and technical interface that was not user-friendly.
To enhance usability, I conducted research interviews with our main users—the customer success and sales teams—to pinpoint pain points.
My research focused on:
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understanding the bot building process
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common flow journeys, and the challenges faced.
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Learning to build a bot myself (it was really hard)
Insights VS Solution
👎 Creating conversational flows from scratch each time is inefficient.
✔️ Shared skills streamline workflow by allowing quick access to past conversational flows, reducing the need to start from scratch.
👎 Currently, there is no capability to copy skills between bots.
✔️ Features like the "Marketplace" for skills can provide a user-friendly interface for anyone using the tool, facilitating informed decision-making during skill selection.
👎 Limited team members possess the necessary bot-building skills
✔️ A Super Bot account serves as a centralized hub for managing all shared skills, ensuring organization and easy access for bot builders.
What Else?
I also noticed that habits formed from familiarity can sometimes lead to unnecessary actions. Seizing this opportunity, I revamped the side "build" panel, which, although not a new feature, needed an update. The panel was cluttered with numerous sections, all essential for flow building, but it required reorganization for improved usability.
Preview Tab* feature provides users with a convenient glimpse of the chat window's appearance. By introducing a "floaty" widget that offers a seamless experience by allowing users to view the preview without navigating away from their current view.
*This feature wasn't implemented due to time constraints
Default Blocks form a mandatory part of a flow, each fulfilling a specific function. The Welcome block kicks off the conversation, the Fallback block handles messages the bot doesn't understand, and the Reengagement block prompts a response after a period of inactivity. While these blocks serve distinct purposes, grouping them separately can be perplexing, considering their shared characteristic as fundamental blocks.
Forms are essentially blocks, integral to a group, yet separating them caused considerable confusion regarding their group affiliation. As a solution, I modified their color and integrated them into a group to enhance visual differentiation, ultimately minimizing clutter
I eliminated the Close button since users primarily engage with the tool through the build panel, which is the central and most vital aspect. Including a close button suggests it's less critical, potentially minimizing its importance.
I discovered that due to the backend's functioning, deleting a block after deploying a bot is not feasible. This led us to contemplate methods for managing unused blocks and groups, prompting the creation of an Archive section. These unused blocks can be moved there, ensuring they remain hidden from users unless the archive is expanded.
Takeaways
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While I had a basic understanding of bot construction, I lacked familiarity with its finer details—a skill that improves with practice.
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By enabling quick access to previously created flows, I significantly reduced redundancy and enhanced efficiency.
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Visually differentiating elements and removing redundancies reduced clutter, improved clarity, and focused user attention on essential tools.