AI Chat Interfaces: Making Complex Web Applications Easier to Use
Complex web applications are often difficult to use and require a lot of training. An AI chat interface integrated directly into the application helps users reach their goals faster and more easily. We’ll show you where it helps and what benefits it brings.
Until now, we’ve had to learn exactly how most applications work before we could use them. AI-based conversational interfaces, also known as AI chat interfaces, are changing this fundamentally. Users chat with the AI and get immediate help navigating the application without having to click their way through it themselves.
Operate Applications in Your Own Words
The more complex an application is and the more features it offers, the harder it is for users to navigate it. Many companies feel the consequences of this in their day-to-day operations:
- New employees need training before they can work independently.
- Coworkers spend a lot of time answering questions and providing internal support.
- Mistakes happen with features people rarely use.
- Users only tap into a fraction of the application’s features because they don’t know the rest exist or can’t find them.
An AI chat interface adds a new layer of interaction to login-protected areas. The existing interface stays the same; the only addition is a chat window. Users can describe their goal in their own words, and the underlying language model answers their questions, shows them how to get there, or completes the task itself.
This lowers the barrier to entry. Anyone who knows what they want to achieve can reach their goal, even without knowing every menu item. Experienced users can continue to use the application as usual or save time by delegating tasks to the conversational interface. Less experienced users get step-by-step guidance.
The Difference from Traditional AI Chatbots
Many people are familiar with traditional AI chatbots from public websites: they search a knowledge base and use it to answer questions. However, they’re usually of limited use, since their answers come only from support pages and predefined knowledge bases. AI chat interfaces go further: they draw on additional context and can perform actions themselves.
Chat interfaces are especially easy to implement in areas behind a login. That’s also where they offer the most value, since customer portals, internal tools, and admin areas tend to be more complex than public websites. In these areas, the conversational interface receives the entire application as context, along with information about the logged-in user: their role, their permissions, and the data they are authorized to access. It can also be authorized to take action, using the application’s features to prepare or carry out tasks.Behind a login, the rule is simple: the AI chat interface can do exactly what the logged-in user can do. It can only see that user’s data and use the features enabled for them.
It provides support in four ways:
- Explain: It answers questions about the application and the user’s own data.
- Suggest: It recommends what to do next and points out features that can help.
- Navigate and prepare: It opens the page or form associated with the request and pre-fills fields with information it already has.
- Execute: It completes the task on its own.
Companies decide how much control users keep. For example, the conversational interface can be designed to ask for confirmation before taking consequential actions, or to apply changes only after the people responsible have approved them. Logs that make every action traceable also provide additional security.
Chat interfaces are also gaining ground on public websites, but the technology isn’t quite mature there yet. For now, traditional AI chatbots are usually the better choice.
Greater clarity, greater accessibility
Interfaces packed with features create barriers for many people. An AI-based chat interface makes it easier for users to reach their goal: they describe what they need, just as they would to a coworker. Users chat with the AI and describe their issue just as they would explain it to a coworker. Those who benefit the most are:
- Screen reader users, who would otherwise have to work their way through multilevel menus
- People with motor impairments, for whom numerous clicks and small controls are exhausting
- People with limited digital experience or cognitive impairments
What’s more, requests don’t need to be error-free or technically precise. The chat interface The also handles colloquial language, simple phrasing, and typos.
Rethinking User Interfaces for Web Applications
In the future, some of the ways we use websites and web applications could move to chat interfaces. This would also change the way user interfaces are designed. Until now, developers have had to make every feature visible so that users can find it. With a chat interface, users can access many functions with a simple request. Bulk actions and similar functions no longer need dedicated space in the interface. This allows the user interface to focus on what people do every day. Rarely used features stay accessible via chat without cluttering menus and forms. This makes applications clearer and easier to learn.
How much work does it take to add a chat interface to a web application, and what does the application need to support it? We’d be happy to talk it through with you. A working proof of concept (PoC) can be ready in about two weeks. That way, you can see firsthand, on your own system, how a chat interface supports your users.