iDW, November 2017

Making Content Accessible for Chatbotsand Voice Interfaces

Joe Gelb

AI-driven Bots and Voice Interfaces:Another Content Retrieval Mechanism

“Hey, my Roomba just started beeping. It says error 6. how do I get it to start

again? Help!”

Beep Beep Beep

“Your Roomba is stuck on a dark surface, over an edge, or on a threshold.

Move it to a new location and press CLEAN to restart.

Did that work?

OK, then try this: your Roomba sensors might be dirty. Wipe the cliff sensors with a dry cloth.

Availability of relevant, updated content is critical for scalability.

Existing structured, semantic content+

Faceted classification

ü Scalable platform ü Personalizationü Successful Adoption of Intelligent

Assistants

Extracting Entities to Retrieve Answers

“Hey, my Roomba just started beeping. It says error 6. how do I get it to start

again? Help!”

Beep Beep Beep→ INTENT: troubleshoot

→ SYMPTOM: beeping

→ ERROR CODE: 6

→ SENTIMENT: Help!

+→ ROLE: end-user

→ PRODUCT: Roomba

Request is turned into a Faceted API call

Structured,TaggedContent– fedtothevoice/bot

https://docs.acme.com/csh?product=Roomba&type=troubleshoot&errorCode=6&audience=enduser &symptom=beeping

“Your Roomba is stuck on a dark surface, over an edge, or on a threshold.

Move it to a new location and press CLEAN to restart.

Did that work?

OK, then try this: your Roomba sensors might be dirty. Wipe the cliff sensors with a dry cloth.

Content Hub[CaaS]

<context>

<step>

{bot}

{bot}+ <step>

Content as a Service Hub

Formal Product Content

Call Center

Customer Community

Documentation Portal IoT App AI bots

Product Content Hub[CaaS]

Intelligent Content for the Intelligent Assistant

→ Scenario-based: geared towards user stories

→ Topic-based – answers a single question:

→ What is this? [concept or definition]

→ How do I do it?

→ How do I find the problem, step by step?

→ What’s that detail I’m looking for?

→ Semantically tagged using taxonomy:

→ Controlled vocabulary with synonyms

→ Expresses role, goal, context

Intelligent Content for the Intelligent Assistant

→ Extractable using an A/I API

→ Semantic query

→ Fallback rules

Scenario Based Content

→ Aligned with

→ Agile user stories and scenarios

→ Common support or search requests

→ Scenarios are used to develop faceted taxonomy

→ Content is tagged (classified) using the taxonomy

→ Taxonomy facets + synonyms are the basis for entities

Defining Scenarios and EntitiesI am a Service Engineer. I need to:

• Install a new 8300S Flow Meter via Profibus protocol

• Connect to the Device Managerusing a hand-held Field Communicator

Leveraging our Existing Content:The Challenge

We’ve worked hard to build these:

Voice and bots are conversational and textual

So, we go from multi-media and visual to the opposite extreme

How can we make that bridge to truly reusable content?

We can use "accessibility" as our benchmark

ü VisibilityWith voice interfaces we are “blind”

ü HearingWith chatbots we are “deaf”

ü MobilityDifficulty to select and navigate

ü CognitiveNeed to be clear, concise, easy to retrieve more detailed or secondary information

Wecanborrowfromthestandardslaidoutforaccessibility:Section508andWCAG2.0

Background: Section 508 and WCAGSection 508Ø Legal compliance criteria for accessibilityØ Covers wide range of electronic and information technology, not

limited to web content

WCAG: Web Content Accessibility GuidelinesØ Developed through W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)Ø Lists guidelines, with checkpoints for each guidelineØ WCAG 2.0 broadens scope to address full variety of web

technologiesØ Divided into levels: A, AA, AAAØ Section 508 now references WCAG 2.0

Why comply with Section 508 and WCAG?Legalo Legal obligationso Risk of lawsuit

Commercialo Customer Effort: if it’s hard for a disabled person to use your content, they’ll

go elsewhere…o 20% of people have disabilitieso On average everyone will be disabled 11% of their lives

For us: if the conversational flow is not highly effective, the technology will be disregarded and will have the adverse commercial effect: anything less than excellent is worse than nothing at all

WCAG: Underlying Principles

q Content must be perceivableq Interface elements in the content must be operableq Content and controls must be understandableq Content must be robust enough to work with current and future

technologies

Making Content Perceivable

ü Provide text for non-textual content such as images and diagrams

ü Anything that has a voice, such as videos and instructional diagrams, should be captioned, transcript, audio described

ü Information, structure and relationships should be presented via text

ü Content should be presented in a meaningful order

ü Do not rely on sensory characteristics such as shape, size, visual location, orientation

ü Do not rely on color as a means to visually convey information

ü Do not rely on interface elements or cursor focus to show content

Making Content Operable

ü Allow content presentation to be paused, stopped and skipped

ü Do not rely on timing to present content

ü Sections of content should have descriptive titles

ü Links to other content should be presented textually, descriptively and conversationally

ü Content should be short and topic-based, answering one question or providing one procedure

Making Content Understandable

ü Content should be presented in the language of the user

ü Avoid using words or phrases in an unusual way, including idioms and jargon

ü Define abbreviations in every section of text, and avoid over using them

ü Content should be understandable for people with lower secondary level of education

ü Use consistent and unambiguous terminology

ü Identify objects and actions consistently

Making Content Robust

ü Procedural content should not contain large blocks of tabular or reference-like material

ü Content should be written to support multiple content delivery mechanisms

Check it out

ü WCAG Quick Referencehttps://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG20/quickref/

ü Section 508 with WCAG

ü Introhttps://www.section508.gov/content/build/website-accessibility-improvement/WCAG-conformance

ü Comparisonhttps://www.access-board.gov/guidelines-and-standards/communications-and-it/about-the-ict-refresh/background/comparison-table-of-wcag2-to-existing-508-standards

http://www.tomjewett.com/accessibility/508-WCAG2.html

THANK YOU!Joe.Gelb@zoominsoftware.com