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I suspect there are many, many things for which chat is a great interface. And by positioning ChatGPT as the distributor for all these things, they get to be th

I suspect there are many, many things for which chat is a great interface. And by positioning ChatGPT as the distributor for all these things, they get to be the new Google. But you're also right that many domains for which a purpose-built interface is the right approach, and if the domain is valuable enough, it'll have someone coming after it to build that.

munk-a 1y ago
I have yet to see a chat agent deployed that is more popular than tailored browsing methods. The most charitable way to explain this is that the tailored browsing methods already in place are the results of years of careful design and battle testing and that the chat agent is providing most of the value that a tailored browsing method would but without any of the investment required to bring a traditional UX to fruition - that may be the case and if it is then allowing them the same time to be refined and improved would be fair. I am skeptical of that being the only difference though, I think that chatbots are a way to, essentially, outsource the difficult work of locating data within a corpus onto the user and that users will always have a disadvantage compared to the (hopefully) subject matter experts building the system. So perhaps chatbots are an excellent method for building out a prototype in a new field while you collect usage statistics to build a more refined UX - but it is bizarre that so many businesses seem to be discarding battle tested UXes for chatbots.
- peab 1y ago
  agree. Thing is, for those who paid attention to the last chatBot hype cycle, we already knew this. Look at how Google Assistant was portrayed back in 2016. People thought you'd be buying starbucks via the chat. Turns out the starbucks app has a better UX
  - ryandrake 1y ago
    Yea, I don't want to sit there at my computer, which can handle lots of different input methods, like keyboard, mouse, clicking, dragging, or my phone which can handle gestures, pinching, swiping... and try to articulate what I need it to do in English language conversation. This is actually a step backwards in human-computer interaction. To use an extreme example: imagine instead of a knob on my stereo for volume, I had a chat box where I had to type in "Volume up to 35". Most other "chatbot solved" HCI problems are just like this volume control example, but less extreme.
    - Forgeties79 1y ago
      “volume up to 35” >changes bass to +4 because the unit doesn't do half increments “No volume up to 35, do not touch the EQ” >adjusts volume to 4 because the unit doesn’t do half increments > I reach over, grab my remote, and do it myself We have a grandparent that really depends on their Alexa and let me tell you repeatedly going “hey Alexa, volume down. Hey Alexa, volume down. Hey Alexa, volume down,” gets really old lol we just walk over and start using the touch interface
    - chongli 1y ago
      It's funny, because the chat bot designers seem to be continually attempting to recreate the voice computer interface from Star Trek: TNG. Yet if you watch the show carefully, the vast majority of the work done by all the Enterprise crew is done via touchscreens, not voice. The only reason for the voice interface is to facilitate the production of a TV show. By having the characters speak their requests aloud to the computer as voice commands, the show bypasses all the issues of building visual effects for computer screens and making those visuals easy to interpret for the audience, regardless of their computing background. However, whenever the show wants to demonstrate a character with a high level of computer mastery, the demonstration is almost always via the touchscreen (this is most often seen with Data), not the voice interface. TNG had issues like this figured out years ago, yet people continue to fall into the same trap because they repeatedly fail to learn the lessons the show had to teach.
      - fishpen0 1y ago
        It's actually hilarious to think of a scene where all the people on the bridge are shouting over each other trying to get the ship to do anything at all. Maybe this is how we all get our own offices again and the open floor plan dies.
        NBJack 1y ago
        Hmm. Maybe something useful will come of this after all! "...and that is why we need the resources. Newline, end document. Hey, guys, I just got done with my 60 page report, and need-" "SELECT ALL, DELETE, SAVE DOCUMENT, FLUSH UNDO, PURGE VERSION HISTORY, CLOSE WINDOW." Here's hoping this at least gets us back to cubes.
  - potatolicious 1y ago
    It's also a matter of incentives. Starbucks wants you in their app instead of as a widget in somebody else's - it lets them tell you about new products, cross-sell/up-sell, create habits, etc. This general concept (embedding third parties as widgets in a larger product) has been tried many times before. Google themselves have done this - by my count - at least three separate times (Search, Maps, and Assistant). None have been successful in large part because the third party being integrated benefits only marginally from such an integration. The amount of additional traffic these integrations drive generally isn't seen as being worth the loss of UX control and the intermediation in the customer relationship.
  - JambalayaJimbo 1y ago
    Current LLMs are way better at understanding language than the old voice assistants.
  - jwpapi 1y ago
    Omg thank you guys. It felt so obvious to me but nobody talked about it. A UX is better and another app or website feels like the exact separation needed. Booking flights => browser => skyscanner => destination typing => evaluation options with ai suggestions on top and UX to fine-tune if I have out of the ordinary wishes (don’t want to get up so early) I can’t imagine a human or an AI be better than is this specialized UX.
- anal_reactor 1y ago
  > the tailored browsing methods already in place are the results of years of careful design and battle testing Have you ever worked in a corporation? Do you really think that Windows 8 UI was the fruit of years of careful design? What about Workday? > but it is bizarre that so many businesses seem to be discarding battle tested UXes for chatbots Not really. If the chatbot is smart enough then chatbot is the more natural interface. I've seen people who prefer to say "hey siri set alarm clock for 10 AM" rather than use the UI. Which makes sense, because language is the way people literally have evolved specialized organs for. If anything, language is the "battle tested UX", and the other stuff is temporary fad. Of course the problem is that most chatbots aren't smart. But this is a purely technical problem that can be solved within foreseeable future.
  - WanderPanda 1y ago
    Alarm is a good example of an “output only” task. The more inputs that need to be processed the less a pure chatbot interface is good (think lunch bowl menus, shopping in general etc.)
  - freehorse 1y ago
    In an alarm, there is only one parameter to set. In more complex tasks, chat is a bad ui because it does not scale well and it does not offer good ways to arrange information. Eg if I want to buy something and I have a bunch of constraints, I would rather use a search-based UI where i can fast tweak these constraints and decide. Chathpt being smart or not here is irrelevant, it would just be bad ui for the task.
    - anal_reactor 1y ago
      You're thinking in wrong categories. Suppose you want to buy a table. You could say "I'm looking for a €400 100x200cm table, black" and these are your search criteria. But that's not what you actually want. What you actually want is a table that fits your use case and looks nice and doesn't cost much, and "€400 100x200cm table, black" is a discrete approximation of your initial fuzzy search. A chatbot could talk to you about what you want, and suggest a relevant product. Imagine going to a shop and browsing all the aisles vs talking to the store employee. Chatbot is like the latter, but for a webshop. Not to mention that most webshops have their categories completely disorganized, making "search by constraints" impossible.
- sanj 1y ago
  Hard disagree. At least in my domains, the "battle-tested" UX is a direct replication of underlying data structures and database tables. What chat gives you access to is a non-structured input that a clever coder can then sufficiently structure to create a vector database query. Natural language turns out to be far more flexible and nuanced interface than walls of checkboxes.
- raducu 1y ago
  > I have yet to see a chat agent deployed that is more popular than tailored browsing methods. Not an agent, but I've seen people choose doctors based on asking ChatGpt for criteria and the did make those appointments. Saved them countless web interfaces to dig through. ChatGpt saved me so much money by searching for discount coupons on courses. It even offered free entrance passwords on events I didn't know had such a thing (I asked it where the event was and it also told me the free entrance password it found on some obscure site). I've seen doctors use ChatGpt to generate medical letters -- Chat Gpt used some medical letters python code and the doctors loved the result. I've used ChatGpt to trim an energy bill to 10 pages because my current provider generated a 12 page bill in an attempt to prevent me from switching (because they knew the other provider did not accept bills of more than 10 pages). Combined with how incredibly good codex is, combined with how easily chat gpt can just create throw away one-time apps, no way the whole agent interface doesn't eat a huge chunk of the traditional UX software we are used to.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
foobarian 1y ago
I knew it! -diehard CLI user

munk-a 1y ago

I have yet to see a chat agent deployed that is more popular than tailored browsing methods. The most charitable way to explain this is that the tailored browsing methods already in place are the results of years of careful design and battle testing and that the chat agent is providing most of the value that a tailored browsing method would but without any of the investment required to bring a traditional UX to fruition - that may be the case and if it is then allowing them the same time to be refined and improved would be fair. I am skeptical of that being the only difference though, I think that chatbots are a way to, essentially, outsource the difficult work of locating data within a corpus onto the user and that users will always have a disadvantage compared to the (hopefully) subject matter experts building the system. So perhaps chatbots are an excellent method for building out a prototype in a new field while you collect usage statistics to build a more refined UX - but it is bizarre that so many businesses seem to be discarding battle tested UXes for chatbots.

peab 1y ago
agree. Thing is, for those who paid attention to the last chatBot hype cycle, we already knew this. Look at how Google Assistant was portrayed back in 2016. People thought you'd be buying starbucks via the chat. Turns out the starbucks app has a better UX
- ryandrake 1y ago
  Yea, I don't want to sit there at my computer, which can handle lots of different input methods, like keyboard, mouse, clicking, dragging, or my phone which can handle gestures, pinching, swiping... and try to articulate what I need it to do in English language conversation. This is actually a step backwards in human-computer interaction. To use an extreme example: imagine instead of a knob on my stereo for volume, I had a chat box where I had to type in "Volume up to 35". Most other "chatbot solved" HCI problems are just like this volume control example, but less extreme.
  - Forgeties79 1y ago
    “volume up to 35” >changes bass to +4 because the unit doesn't do half increments “No volume up to 35, do not touch the EQ” >adjusts volume to 4 because the unit doesn’t do half increments > I reach over, grab my remote, and do it myself We have a grandparent that really depends on their Alexa and let me tell you repeatedly going “hey Alexa, volume down. Hey Alexa, volume down. Hey Alexa, volume down,” gets really old lol we just walk over and start using the touch interface
  - chongli 1y ago
    It's funny, because the chat bot designers seem to be continually attempting to recreate the voice computer interface from Star Trek: TNG. Yet if you watch the show carefully, the vast majority of the work done by all the Enterprise crew is done via touchscreens, not voice. The only reason for the voice interface is to facilitate the production of a TV show. By having the characters speak their requests aloud to the computer as voice commands, the show bypasses all the issues of building visual effects for computer screens and making those visuals easy to interpret for the audience, regardless of their computing background. However, whenever the show wants to demonstrate a character with a high level of computer mastery, the demonstration is almost always via the touchscreen (this is most often seen with Data), not the voice interface. TNG had issues like this figured out years ago, yet people continue to fall into the same trap because they repeatedly fail to learn the lessons the show had to teach.
    - fishpen0 1y ago
      It's actually hilarious to think of a scene where all the people on the bridge are shouting over each other trying to get the ship to do anything at all. Maybe this is how we all get our own offices again and the open floor plan dies.
      - NBJack 1y ago
        Hmm. Maybe something useful will come of this after all! "...and that is why we need the resources. Newline, end document. Hey, guys, I just got done with my 60 page report, and need-" "SELECT ALL, DELETE, SAVE DOCUMENT, FLUSH UNDO, PURGE VERSION HISTORY, CLOSE WINDOW." Here's hoping this at least gets us back to cubes.
- potatolicious 1y ago
  It's also a matter of incentives. Starbucks wants you in their app instead of as a widget in somebody else's - it lets them tell you about new products, cross-sell/up-sell, create habits, etc. This general concept (embedding third parties as widgets in a larger product) has been tried many times before. Google themselves have done this - by my count - at least three separate times (Search, Maps, and Assistant). None have been successful in large part because the third party being integrated benefits only marginally from such an integration. The amount of additional traffic these integrations drive generally isn't seen as being worth the loss of UX control and the intermediation in the customer relationship.
- JambalayaJimbo 1y ago
  Current LLMs are way better at understanding language than the old voice assistants.
- jwpapi 1y ago
  Omg thank you guys. It felt so obvious to me but nobody talked about it. A UX is better and another app or website feels like the exact separation needed. Booking flights => browser => skyscanner => destination typing => evaluation options with ai suggestions on top and UX to fine-tune if I have out of the ordinary wishes (don’t want to get up so early) I can’t imagine a human or an AI be better than is this specialized UX.
anal_reactor 1y ago
> the tailored browsing methods already in place are the results of years of careful design and battle testing Have you ever worked in a corporation? Do you really think that Windows 8 UI was the fruit of years of careful design? What about Workday? > but it is bizarre that so many businesses seem to be discarding battle tested UXes for chatbots Not really. If the chatbot is smart enough then chatbot is the more natural interface. I've seen people who prefer to say "hey siri set alarm clock for 10 AM" rather than use the UI. Which makes sense, because language is the way people literally have evolved specialized organs for. If anything, language is the "battle tested UX", and the other stuff is temporary fad. Of course the problem is that most chatbots aren't smart. But this is a purely technical problem that can be solved within foreseeable future.
- WanderPanda 1y ago
  Alarm is a good example of an “output only” task. The more inputs that need to be processed the less a pure chatbot interface is good (think lunch bowl menus, shopping in general etc.)
- freehorse 1y ago
  In an alarm, there is only one parameter to set. In more complex tasks, chat is a bad ui because it does not scale well and it does not offer good ways to arrange information. Eg if I want to buy something and I have a bunch of constraints, I would rather use a search-based UI where i can fast tweak these constraints and decide. Chathpt being smart or not here is irrelevant, it would just be bad ui for the task.
  - anal_reactor 1y ago
    You're thinking in wrong categories. Suppose you want to buy a table. You could say "I'm looking for a €400 100x200cm table, black" and these are your search criteria. But that's not what you actually want. What you actually want is a table that fits your use case and looks nice and doesn't cost much, and "€400 100x200cm table, black" is a discrete approximation of your initial fuzzy search. A chatbot could talk to you about what you want, and suggest a relevant product. Imagine going to a shop and browsing all the aisles vs talking to the store employee. Chatbot is like the latter, but for a webshop. Not to mention that most webshops have their categories completely disorganized, making "search by constraints" impossible.
sanj 1y ago
Hard disagree. At least in my domains, the "battle-tested" UX is a direct replication of underlying data structures and database tables. What chat gives you access to is a non-structured input that a clever coder can then sufficiently structure to create a vector database query. Natural language turns out to be far more flexible and nuanced interface than walls of checkboxes.
raducu 1y ago
> I have yet to see a chat agent deployed that is more popular than tailored browsing methods. Not an agent, but I've seen people choose doctors based on asking ChatGpt for criteria and the did make those appointments. Saved them countless web interfaces to dig through. ChatGpt saved me so much money by searching for discount coupons on courses. It even offered free entrance passwords on events I didn't know had such a thing (I asked it where the event was and it also told me the free entrance password it found on some obscure site). I've seen doctors use ChatGpt to generate medical letters -- Chat Gpt used some medical letters python code and the doctors loved the result. I've used ChatGpt to trim an energy bill to 10 pages because my current provider generated a 12 page bill in an attempt to prevent me from switching (because they knew the other provider did not accept bills of more than 10 pages). Combined with how incredibly good codex is, combined with how easily chat gpt can just create throw away one-time apps, no way the whole agent interface doesn't eat a huge chunk of the traditional UX software we are used to.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

foobarian 1y ago

I knew it! -diehard CLI user