Ask Watson 2 | Stephanie Ludwig

Ask Watson

Bringing IBM Watson to consumers in the context of weather and travel

THE WEATHER CHANNEL
ROLE: Research, Strategy, UX, Conversation Design, UI, Testing, Bot Training, Vision

Ask Watson is a chatbot targeted to Weather Channel mobile web users who are traveling, and is the first consumer-facing experience in which a user interacts with IBM Watson as an entity.

The main feature of this chat is a comparison forecast for the user's destination with their home location.

Users who interacted with Ask Watson engaged with the bot for three or more conversational interactions, including button clicks and free-form text.

Questions we wished to answer:

Are TWC users interested in using conversation to learn about weather?

Can we create a conversation that added value beyond the core TWC app/website experience?

Considerations:

Can the chatbot provide value beyond the utility of the app?

The chatbot would need to span the planned evolution of the app experience.

Built a base of knowledge about how and when people want to talk about weather. The first step was a Messenger chatbot that became the world's most popular Messenger chatbot in 2017. We confirmed that travel is a high-engagement opportunity with experiments that included interviews, man-behind the curtain experiments on Facebook, and in-app and website surveys. We Looked for direction regarding brand, information interest and entry point.

Process

Imagined and created unique presentations of weather data for travel planners. Ideas were tested with a select group of sponsored users.

Expanded chat utility to include ancillary content to build emotional connections and excitement. We included opportunities for users to share feedback right in the experience.

Conclusion: Travel is a high-engagement opportunity for a conversational experience. The Ask Watson Travel Better chat became the basis for the Watson branded Ask Watson Digital Assistant.

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