The average person has about 80 different apps installed in their phone. That’s a lot of apps. All of them provide some unique value that a user can leverage when needed. The problem with this, is that for each of these apps, the user must familiarize themselves with a new interface, work through different task flows, and acclimate themselves to varying feedback and interactions for each app. For many of these apps, the usage is only triggered by occurrence of an event.
From this arises the opportunity to leverage chatbots as a means to access app services through conversational interactions. Puka, an SMS chatbot that helps users resolve common household problems, explores this opportunity. By utilizing the Yelp API, users can tell Puka about a household problem and receive the name, rating, and phone number of nearby businesses that can help.
Think: a pink and punny contractor available 24/7.
Puka is the Hawaiian word for ‘hole’. I chose this name when recalling one of my interviews with my aunty, in which she described wanting to fix a ‘puka’ in her wall. Keeping Puka’s personality in mind, I started to build the dialog flow to systematically diagram the conversation a user would have with Puka. In this dialog flow, I also experimented with Puka’s tone in the responses.
I would like to be able to make Puka more than just a bot that can be of use when called upon for a variety of use cases using Yelp's API. Puka could be messaged if a user would like to find nearby businesses for other services such as personal aesthetics, food establishments, auto repairs, and others.I would have also liked to spend more time on the conversation between Puka and the user. Right now, I utilize emojis to make the interaction more delightful, but I think use of other media such as giphys could also serve a more dynamic purpose, and might make the overall experience more engaging.
