HTW Berlin

University of Applied Sciences

Bachelor’s Thesis

Chatbots: Development and Applications

Author Jorin Vogel

First Examiner Prof. Dr. Gefei Zhang
Second Examiner Prof. Dr. Carsten Busch

International Media and Computing

Faculty IV

July 27, 2017

Abstract

Chatbots: Development and Applications explains what chatbots are, what they can
be used for and how to develop them.

Chatbots receive increasing attention from media and industry, but at the same time it is not
yet well known what chatbots really are, what they can be used for and how to create them.
The goal of this work is to answer these three questions by analyzing existing platforms,
products and technologies, and additionally developing an exemplary chatbot. Explaining
what chatbots are, demystifying what to use them for and showing how to create them will
help more people to be able to use and create chatbots and thereby accelerate the development
of the chatbot ecosystem. Starting by defining fundamental terms, the first half of the work
focuses on showing available platforms, products and technologies, while the second half
guides through the development of an exemplary chatbot, including user interaction design
and software architecture.

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Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 Fundamentals 3
2.1 Definition Chatbot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.2 Conversational Interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

3 Applications 6
3.1 Past Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.1.1 The Turing Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.1.2 ELIZA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.1.3 After 1970 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.2 Present Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.3 Platforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3.3.1 Cross-platform Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.4 Communication Mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.5 Classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.6 Advantages of Using Chatbots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.7 Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

4 Development 23
4.1 Choosing a Practical Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4.2 Existing Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
4.3 Use Cases and Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
4.3.1 User Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
4.3.2 Functional Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
4.3.3 Non-functional Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
4.4 Technical Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
4.4.1 Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

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 4.4.2 Platform Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
4.4.3 Server Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
4.5 Features and Interaction Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4.6 Server Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

5 Future Development 43

6 Conclusions 46

Appendix A Figures 47

Appendix B Call Graphs 48

Appendix C Documentation 50

Bibliography 58
List of Figures

3.1 Most Popular Messaging App by Country [24] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

4.1 Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4.2 Get Started Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4.3 Introduction to Studybot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
4.4 Adding three phrases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
4.5 Stop adding phrases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
4.6 Attempt to study and activation of notifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
4.7 Notification message and beginning of study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4.8 Study using buttons or by typing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
4.9 Send feedback and receive a reply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
4.10 Package dependency graph1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
4.11 Call Graph of the messenger package2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

A.1 Disable notifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

B.1 Call Graph of package main . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

B.2 Call Graph of package admin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
B.3 Call Graph of package fbot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

V
1 Introduction

This work gives a general introduction to chatbots by explaining what they are, what they
can be used for and how to develop them.
No previous domain-specific knowledge is required.

Lately as of writing topics around chatbots have received increasing attention from media
and also numerous investments from different actors in the industry. At the same time not
many potential users know about the existence of chatbots or about areas in which chatbots
could be helpful assistance. The topic is equally unknown to developers.
While the term chatbot is commonly used in media, the meaning mostly remains ambiguous.
There is a need for further explanation of what chatbots are and further analysis to iden-
tify well suited applications for chatbots. Additionally to spreading knowledge about the
potentials of chatbots and their use cases, more developers should be enabled to create new,
innovative chatbots.

The lack of knowledge can be solved by providing answers to the questions of what chatbots
are, what benefits they bring and how to create them.
An appropriate definition of chatbots can be given by analyzing the fundamental meaning of
the term chatbot and by exploring past and current applications.
Use cases of chatbots can be identified in existing products. Market trends and attributes
of media and technology can be analyzed to find new potential scenarios for the usage of
chatbots.
Development is best explained by creating a real chatbot and by using it to present the
general principles of the development process.

Explaining what chatbots are, demystifying what to use them for and presenting how to create
them, will help more people to be able to use and create chatbots, and thereby, accelerate
the development of the chatbot ecosystem. Innovation in technology and the creation of new
solutions can help automating and simplifying more tasks, which gives people the opportunity

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to focus on more interesting issues and accomplish more things. Chatbots have the potential
to simplify and automate many existing tasks and thereby accelerate the overall technological
progress.

The structure of this work follows the three main questions. To begin with, terminology is
defined and applications are explored to form a definition and understanding of what chatbots
are. Afterwards use cases of chatbots are identified not only through the collection of existing
examples, but also through the exploration of future potentials by analyzing attributes of the
relevant technologies. The second half of the work is a case study for the development of a
chatbot. The presented example guides through the process of designing user interactions
for a chatbot, and additionally explains architectural decisions and technological choices,
which provide a basis for other developers to build on when creating new chatbots in the
future.

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2 Fundamentals

Before analyzing a topic it is necessary to have common definitions of its vocabulary. This
chapter helps aligning previous assumptions.

2.1 Definition Chatbot

The term chatbot consists of two other terms - chat and bot. The meaning can be better
understood by examining the two components separately.

The Oxford Dictionary defines chat as “an informal conversation” and more specifically
as “the online exchange of messages in real time with one or more simultaneous users of a
computer network” [1]. As apparent in this definition, conversations play a central role in
chat and therefore chatbots. Other noteworthy aspects of this definition are the inherent
informal format of a chat, and the traits of being online and real time.
Informality does not have to be seen as a strict requirement; however a chat message and, for
example, a classical letter have different degrees of formality.
Being online and thereby not bound to a specific geographic location, device or other physi-
cality can be seen as critical foundation for determining potential types of systems suitable
for such media.
The aspect of limiting communication to real time implies restrictions on possible interactions
and sets a baseline for the expected user experience. This also excludes the usage of certain
technologies which do not support the desired responsiveness.

A conversation is defined as “a talk, especially an informal one, between two or more people,
in which news and ideas are exchanged” [2]. Fundamental to this definition is that there are
always at least two parties involved in communication and that information is exchanged.
Keeping that in mind, the kind of systems involved in this should always receive and provide
information; chatbots can not work with solely unidirectional interaction.

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 2 Fundamentals

Bot is defined as being “(chiefly in science fiction) a robot” with the specific characteristics
of representing “an autonomous program on a network (especially the Internet) which can
interact with systems or users, especially one designed to behave like a player in some video
games” [3].
Foremost this provides the information that bots, including chatbots, are programs. The
creation of a chatbot implies the creation of an artifact in the form of a computer program.
Furthermore the aspect of autonomy and the communication over a network can be connected
with the previous described trait of a chat to be online.
The program is given autonomy by not being bound to any specific device. Building on this
allows for different solutions than a scenario where the user is in full control of a program’s
behavior.
Lastly there is a hint in this definition pointing out that a bot can often be seen as a player
in a game. This trend towards game-like mechanisms and the previous mentioned informality
suggest the utilization of playful interactions.

Concluding from the combination of these definitions, a chatbot can be defined as an

autonomous computer program that interacts with users or systems online and in real time
in the form of, often play-like and informal, conversations.

2.2 Conversational Interfaces

Having defined the concept and character of chatbots, one apparent attribute of the technology
under examination is that its domain of application involves interaction with one or more users.

Any form of interaction requires an interface as a way to interact. An interface is generally

described as a “point where two systems, subjects, organizations, etc. meet and interact” and
in the area of computing it can be further defined as a “device or program enabling a user to
communicate with a computer” [4].

This definition leaves a broad array of possible manifestations. However, the range of suitable
means of communication can be further narrowed by including another aspect of the previous
definition, namely that interaction happens in the form of conversation.

Many communication mechanisms can be excluded by focusing on this characteristic of the

interaction.

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 2 Fundamentals

The term conversation strongly suggests the usage of natural human language as the base
for interaction while discouraging the idea of using an interface consisting purely of static or
graphical elements.
Further, conversations are not limited to written language. Verbal conversation is also a
possible interface for communication.

Focusing on written, text-based communication, it becomes apparent that not all text-based
interfaces fit the characteristics of a conversational interface.
Classical command line interfaces, which are often used to interact with computers, are one
example of text-based interfaces that do not have the attributes of conversational interfaces.
As implied in the naming, these interfaces use commands for interaction. A command is an
“authoritative order” [5] which contrasts with a conversation.
The term conversation has a connotation of complex, non-linear communication where each
involved party understands the underlying ideas communicated opposed to merely receiving
the characters the words consist of.

Understanding of the intentions a user has and the ability to adjust interactions accord-
ingly, sets conversational interfaces, and thus chatbots, apart from other text-based inter-
faces.

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3 Applications

This chapter explores different applications of chatbots to understand the characteristics of a

chatbot in practice and to see the kind of applications chatbots can be used for.
Starting with past work and looking at the present in subsequent sections, different approaches
and products are presented. Furthermore, todays ecosystem is portrayed, including an
overview about available platforms, existing products and current approaches for the creation
of chatbots. Lastly aspired advantages, potentials and promises of chatbots are further
identified.

3.1 Past Work

Before exploring new technology one should examine prior work and learn from past ideas,
both succeed and also failed attempts.
This section presents a selection of events from the last century, which introduced the ideas that
formed the present definition of a chatbot. It is not an attempt to give an all-encompassing
overview about the history of computing, instead the aim is to explain where the concept of
chatbots and the interest of creating them originated from.

3.1.1 The Turing Test

Even before the term chatbot was coined people started working on machines that interact
with humans through natural language.
A first milestone was the 1950 paper Computing Machinery and Intelligence by Alan Turing [6].
The ideas he formulated back then are still fundamental to the concept of a chatbot in today’s
world and his thoughts are still central to many discussions about artificial intelligence.
The most famous idea from this paper is the so called Turing Test, which is meant to decide
whether a machine posses human-like intelligence or not.
Originally Turing called the test imitation game whereas the experiment consists of a human
interacting with two parties via textual messages. One of the parties is another human and
one is a machine. The test subject does not know upfront which party is a machine and

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which one is a human, but only that one of them will be a machine. During the game the
human interacts with the other party only through textual messages, but is free to use any
variation of messages. If the human is not able to tell which of the two parties is a machine
and which one is a human, the machine passes the Turing Test.
When creating a chatbot or another kind of artificial intelligence this test can still be applied
to test the human-likeliness of the created machinery.

While Alan Turing did not invent the first chatbot, the Turing Test was a crucial motivation
for the following developments and even today the test still remains to be challenged by new
systems.

3.1.2 ELIZA
Fourteen years after the Turing Test was introduced, Joseph Weizenbaum started working on
what would be known as the first program to pass a variation of the Turing Test. Joseph
Weizenbaum began working at MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in 1964 and released
the ELIZA program in 1966. Thus it can be considered as the first known creation of a chatbot.

ELIZA creates responses to messages that a user inputs via a text-based terminal.

The original version of ELIZA was written in a programming language called MAD-Slip,
which was also created by Joseph Weizenbaum himself, and ran on the IBM 704 computer.

The most famous implementation of ELIZA is called DOCTOR and simulates a Rogerian
psychotherapist.
Rogerian psychotherapy is a person-centered therapy intended to let the client realize their
own attitudes and behavior [7]. Although relying on mostly simple methods, it remains
a popular treatment. Most answers the therapist gives are questions for further details
about information which the client mentioned previously. Furthermore clients mostly keep
the assumption that a therapist has specific intentions even when asking non-obvious questions.

ELIZA takes advantage of the structure of the English language; the program takes apart
sentences via pattern matching and keywords, and reuses phrases after substituting certain
words. For example, a client’s answer “Well, my boyfriend made me come here.” can be
transformed to “Your boyfriend made you come here?” [8].

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Certain signal words and also sentences containing no signals words can be answered with
generic, static phrases. Detecting the signal word “alike” in the sentence “Men are all alike.”
ELIZA could pick the programmed phrase “In what way?” as answer [8].

Knowing about the nature of Rogerian psychotherapy, Joseph Weizenbaum created ELIZA
initially intended as a parody to demonstrate the simple behavior necessary for imitating
this therapy. He was surprised that even people who knew about the inner workings of
the program ended up having serious conversations with ELIZA. In one anecdote Joseph
Weizenbaum told how his secretary, after starting a conversation with ELIZA, asked him:
“Would you mind leaving the room, please?” [9, p. 5].

Led by the success of the experiment he published the book Computer power and human
reason: from judgment to calculation in 1976, which presents his thoughts about artificial
intelligence, including the differences between machines and humans and the limits of
computer intelligence. In the book he admits that he had not realized “that extremely
short exposures to a relatively simple computer program could induce powerful delusional
thinking in quite normal people” [10]. This idea coined the term Eliza Effect which describes,
that people quickly assume computers to behave like humans. This term is still in use
today.

3.1.3 After 1970

Another famous program was published by the psychiatrist Kenneth Colby in 1972. He
created PARRY as an attempt to simulate a human with paranoid schizophrenia. The
implementation of PARRY is far more complex than ELIZA, but it also models a personality
including concepts of how to conduct conversations. The most famous demonstration of
PARRY was at the first International Conference on Computer Communications (ICCC)
in 1972 where PARRY and ELIZA had a conversation with each other [11]. Later on in
scientific experiments PARRY also passed a version of the Turing Test.

Further programs have been created to pass the Turing Test and gained the attention of the
public. Jabberwacky was started in 1988 and attempted to learn from the user’s input [12].
In 1991 Dr. Sbaitso was released as an ELIZA-like demonstration for a sound card, which
was one of the first chatbots for MS-DOS-based personal computers [13]. And A.L.I.C.E. has
been released in 1995 and became famous for its realistic behavior, that is based on heuristic

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patterns instead of static rules [14].

The origin of the term chatbot itself can be seen in a paper called “ChatterBots, TinyMuds,
and the Turing Test: Entering the Loebner Prize Competition” published by Michael L.
Mauldin in 1994, whereby chatbot can be seen as a variation of the original term Chatter-
Bots [15].

Up until today the Turing Test has only been passed limited to certain domains, and there is
no chatbot yet that is able to simulate general human behavior indistinguishably from real
human beings.
But, although creating an as human-like as possible system remains a popular challenge,
not all applications of chatbots benefit from this type of behavior. Many systems are
instead optimized to provide quick and efficient interactions and behave accordingly without
attempting to hide their artificiality.

3.2 Present Day

With more than sixty years of history the concept of chatbots is not a recent discovery. People
have been fascinated with the idea of being able to talk to computers for a long time; but
past attempts have mostly been simple experiments or applications focused on the aspect of
entertainment associated with machines inspired by science fiction.

Lately the technology industry and press are increasingly interested in the topic of conversa-
tional interfaces and chatbots. The reinforced interest can be explained by observing recent
developments of technology and current market trends.

Since Apple’s release of Siri [16] in 2011 customers have become more aware of the possi-
bilities of conversational interfaces. Even though the capabilities were limited at that time,
functionality improved quickly in the following years, which can be attributed to the new
competition Apple triggered in the market.

At the same time artificial intelligence gained new traction due to the success of using artificial
neural networks for machine learning.

The concept of artificial neural networks “dates back to the 1950s, and many of the key

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algorithmic breakthroughs occurred in the 1980s and 1990s” [17], but only now they are
successfully applied. This is mainly due to the increased computing power available today. A
second crucial condition is the necessity for a large disposable amount of data; big Internet
companies specialize on collecting data, originally intended to better target advertisement,
but now they can use their data to train artificial neural networks.
The technology is named artificial neural network because they are modeled after neural
networks in the human brain; instead of specifying rules of what a program should do, the
machine learns from examples in similar ways to how humans learn. Some tasks that are too
complex to be solved with a rule-based program, can now be solved by collecting enough
example data, letting the machine figure out the solution instead.
These techniques can also be applied in the field of natural language processing, which is
essential to understanding and generating text for conversational interfaces.

With new technical possibilities more people see conversation as an interface not only as an
idea of science fiction movies, but instead as something that could be possible in the real world.

Also recent market trends make chatbots more compelling.

“Computing is rapidly shifting to mobile devices” [18] and “messaging apps have surpassed
social networks in monthly active users” [19]. As a result of these developments users do not
have space for complex interfaces on the small screens of their devices, they need solutions
light-weight in data consumption, and they can not use complicated keyboard shortcuts.
At the same time, users are already spending a majority of their time in instant messaging
applications and therefore, they are well accustomed to chatting as means of communication.

Originating from the current state of technology the increasing interest in conversational inter-
faces leads to new platforms, products and applications for chatbots.

3.3 Platforms

Unless software is distributed with dedicated hardware, software products are designed to be
executed by and accessed through other software. The underlying software is the platform a
product is created for.
Products that target operating systems such as Microsoft Windows or Apple’s iOS require
users to install necessary executable files on their local system. Other software uses the web
as platform, whereby customers use a web browser to access the software over the Internet,

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while the software itself is executed on another computer referred to as server.

In the case of chatbots, the target platform can be any medium that allows users to send
messages to each other. A chatbot can be seen as a counterpart to interact with in the same
way a user interacts with a human counterpart.

There are numerous platforms available that fulfill these requirements.

While messaging platforms provide means of communication, chatbots function similar to

software accessible via a web browser; a server executing the chatbot software is needed
and the messaging platform communicates with the server in the same way a web browser
communicates with a server on the user’s behalf.

Because of the wide variety of available messaging platforms it is not possible to create an
all-encompassing collection of available platforms in the context of this work; the following is
an overview over the currently most popular platforms, including their capabilities and their
area of focus.

One of the most used online communication platforms is E-mail. E-mail however does not
have the characteristics of chatbots, defined in 2.1 on page 3, to be able to communicate
informally and in real time; which disqualifies E-mail as a platform for chatbots, even though
in practice many use cases of chatbots overlap with the ones that can be solved with the
automation of E-mail.
Although users can choose to express themselves less formally and certain E-mail providers
deliver E-mail in a very short time period, this statement is based on the current general
use case whereby these two attributes are not given. Still, it is indeed possible for these
characteristics to change in the future and nothing fundamental about the E-mail protocols
is preventing their usage for chatbots.

A well-known communication technology, which is suited for chatbots, is Short Message

Service, or SMS.
SMS is primarily used on mobile devices and users are identified by their phone numbers,
wherefore the communication has to happen through cellular network providers. However the
technology is limited in number of characters, often users are charged by amount of messages
sent and communication is limited to text-only. “End of year 2009 user level for SMS globally

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was 78%, ie 3.6 Billion” [20] users worldwide, which means it remains one of the most popular
communication channels; and it therefore is an interesting option for applications with a
wide-spread audience or applications requiring a low entry barrier.

Since chatbots can communicate not only via text, but also using voice, phone calls are a
possible medium too. They are a common way of communication available to a large number
of people. However, for a chatbot that relies solely on voice for communication without any
visual feedback, the design of the user experience has to be thought out especially careful.
Furthermore to not only understand and generate natural language, but to also parse and
generate voice comes with further technical costs.

Apple’s Siri is another voice-based system available; but as of writing it is not accessible as
platform for external services. Voice-based systems that can be targeted as platforms are
Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant. Both systems are general assistants helping the user
with a variety of tasks and in both cases tasks can be delegated to third parties.

Currently popular target platforms for chatbots are messenger platforms. They are primarily
text based, they mostly come without cost for end-users and additional to text they often
support multimedia formats such as pictures, audio, locations and stickers. Some platforms
also allow developers to display sliders, buttons and other graphical interface elements, which
can help guiding users instead of exclusively relying on text for communication.
At this point it is not feasible to create a comprehensive list of available features for each
platform, since the field is innovating constantly and many of the platforms add new features
almost every single month.

Facebook’s WhatsApp is with one billion active users in January 2017 one of the most popular
messenger applications [21]. It, however, does currently not allow automated access to its
platform and therefore using it as a chatbot platform is not a viable option.
The second messenger application belonging to Facebook, called Facebook Messenger, is
equally popular with one billion active users in January 2017 as well [21]. Contrary to
WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger provides a platform for developing chatbots.
Following in popularity [22] are two messenger platforms which are mainly popular in China,
QQ Mobile and WeChat. Both of them currently do not provide a specific chatbot platform,
but there have been successful attempts at creating chatbots for these platforms [23].
Further popular messenger applications include the Japan-focused Line, Microsoft’s Skype,

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Telegram and the more business focused Slack. All of these applications provide dedicated
platforms for the development of chatbots.

The choice of platform primarily depends on the target market. Different audiences prefer
different platforms and therefore in certain scenarios one product might be better suited than
another.

Figure 3.1: Most Popular Messaging App by Country [24]

One important factor can be the geographical location of the target audience. As visi-
ble in figure 3.1, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp are the global leading messengers,
and as previously mention the markets in China and Japan are dominated by WeChat
and Line respectively, but the data shows some lesser know trends; for example the Thai
market is also dominated by Line and in Iran, Telegram is the most popular messenger
application.

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3.3.1 Cross-platform Development

As with the creation of other kinds of software, it is possible to release the same chatbot
software for multiple target platforms, whereby the interaction between software and platform
has to conform to the technical details and protocols of each environment, the usage of
platform-specific features has to be adapted individually and the user experience needs to be
designed to fit each environment’s expectations.

There are existing frameworks that allow developers to develop a chatbot once and release it
to multiple platforms at the same time without any adjustments to individual platforms.
One such framework is API.ai by Google. As of writing it supports 16 different integrations,
including platforms such as Facebook Messenger, Skype and Slack [25]. However, this plat-
form is more than an adapter to different platforms. It is a complete solution to developing
chatbots. API.ai comes with built-in support for natural language processing, a chatbot is
already able to have basic conversations out of the box, and developers can train chatbots
about new topics by just providing example conversations while the framework handles all of
the language parsing. Detected keywords and intends can be forwarded to be handled with
custom logic; although for simple use cases this might not be necessary and a chatbot can be
developed without writing a single line of code.

However, there are also limits to platforms like API.ai.

First, intend parsing is, in the case if API.ai, currently limited to a finite list of topics. If a
chatbot is handling topics from a domain unknown to API.ai, this solution is not sufficient
anymore.
Further, developers have no control over the applied machine learning and natural language
processing algorithms. There are no possibilities for customization, if the parsing results or
the generated responses do not match the requirements.
Additionally, while API.ai currently supports 15 different languages, a chatbot is limited to
these available languages. If another language needs to be supported, a lot of work might be
necessary because the system needs to be recreated with a custom solution.
Moreover, an issue to keep in mind is, that, while API.ai has support for many platform-
specific features such as custom formats for message content and quick reply buttons, there
are unique features of single platforms that are not supported and since the space is evolving
at such rapid pace future extensions might not be available either.
Even though API.ai is at the moment free to use for everyone, they will very likely search

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for a sustainable business model in the near future. The business could be sustainable by
charging for the service, collecting data which Google can use elsewhere, binding customers
to their services and gaining market share. Regardless which monetization strategy is
chosen, as a developer one has to be aware that such a service is a non-controllable, external
dependency.

3.4 Communication Mechanisms

Nowadays there are two fundamental ways a chatbot can communicate with users; some
platforms provide user interface elements, such as buttons, that can be displayed to users;
otherwise communication is done solely with natural language.

Interface elements limit user input to a number of predefined actions, while natural language
has no restrictions on possible inputs. By suggesting possible actions in the form of a list of
buttons or similar, possible interactions become obvious and simpler for the user. Even when
limiting interaction to certain actions, the main characteristic of a chatbot remains; the inter-
action is still structured in the form of a conversation, only that the choice of input is restricted.

In certain scenarios there are too many possible user inputs to fit in a fixed list. In these
cases natural language is a more appropriate input method.
Custom input requires to be parsed to extract information. As an example, when the user is
asked for a date and time, and repeating times are also allowed, a user could express a time
as "every second Tuesday at 6am and 9pm", while in a traditional user interface this would
require a non-trivial amount of interface elements.

If natural language is used for communication, it should be clearly stated what kind of input
is expected, so that the user knows which topics and which variations of input the system
understands.

One of the main challenges with a natural language interface is handling the non-restricted
interaction in a coherent way; since user input is in no way limited to a single topic, all sorts
of unexpected user reactions have to be accounted for. As a consequence of this, there are
certain conversations every chatbot has to be able to handle in some way. This includes, but
is not limited to, simple smalltalk such as questions like "How are you today?".

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Most platforms allow for a combination of the discussed communication mechanisms; prede-
fined actions can be displayed as suggestions to the user, while the user is also able to use
natural language. By combining both methods it can be taken advantage of the benefits of
both; there is a clear guideline for interactions and, simultaneously, the user is free to express
any possible custom input.

3.5 Classification

With the increasing number of messaging platforms opening up for chatbot development,
companies have become interested in releasing their product for this new format and some
companies also create new products focusing solely on the chatbot market. It is still a new, not
fully formed market, but there are certain trends for what companies are interested in creating.

One helpful classification of chatbots is categorizing them in terms of features they provide.
The following categories are adapted from the article “7 Types of Bots” by Dotan Elharrar, a
Product Manager at Microsoft AI & Research [26].

Single-feature Chatbots A large number of chatbots provide only one single feature. These
chatbots are limited in functionality but simple to use. One example is a Facebook chatbot
called Instant Translator [27]; in the beginning the user selects one language to translate to.
From there on Instant Translator simply translates all text it receives into the selected target
language.

Proactive Chatbots This category describes chatbots which push information to the user
instead of answering questions in conversations. Hereby the user does not need to interact
with the chatbot, but only uses it as service to receive information at certain times. One
example would a service which sends the user a daily weather forecast. Another use case is
the chatbot for Facebook Messenger from the airline KLM [28]; users can use the service to
get updates and information about their booked flights.

Group Chatbots There is a range of functionality chatbots can provide when they interact
with a whole group of people instead of only a single user. These chatbots are limited to
platforms which provide the necessary features to use chatbots in group conversations. A
simple example for a group chatbot is called Roll [29] for a messaging platform called Kik ;

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when sending a question to Roll, the chatbot answers with a random name picked from the
members of the group.

Simplification Chatbots In a few cases chatbots are used to provide users with a simpler
interface to complicated existing tasks, which would traditionally involve many bureaucratic
and formal steps. One example is a service called DoNotPay. It is advertised as “the world’s
first robot lawyer” [30] and the service helps the user with simple legal problems, such as
fighting parking tickets.

Entertainment Chatbots A popular kind of chatbots are still chatbots whose functionality
consists only of having conversations with users. These services don’t interact with other
resources apart from the conversation itself. The in 3.1.2 on page 7 described ELIZA belongs
to this category.

Personal Assistants This category consists of chatbots that combine many different features
and can be seen as platforms of their own. Siri and Alexa, which have been mentioned earlier,
belong to this category.

Optimization Chatbots This category tries to make existing products more accessible
by creating a chatbot for users to connect to a product. The difference to a simplification
chatbot is that a optimization chatbot is not built on an external entity, such as the legal
system of a state, but it instead connects to a product a company has full control over. By
taking advantage of new platforms, companies like to reduce friction for customers to use
their products. The currently most obvious aspect of chatbot platforms is the ease for users
to access products. Companies like to optimize the use of their products by making them
available via the conversational interfaces of chatbots.
Use cases fitting the category of optimization chatbots can be found across many different
industries. The article “100 Best Bots For Brands & Businesses” [31] lists examples from
different industries using chatbots to optimize access to their products.
Products include beauty brands such as Sephora, consumer goods like Johnnie Walker,
entertainment companies including Disney and Marvel, fashion brand such as H&M, financial
services like PayPal, food delivery from stores such as Pizza Hut, E-commerce platforms
including eBay, traveling services such as Airbnb and Expedia, airlines like Lufthansa and
British Airways and many news outlets including Washington Post, New York Times, Forbes

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and BCC.

As apparent from the engagement of many well established companies, brands are very
interested in being present on messenger platforms.
While there is growing interest in targeting messaging platforms as new markets, currently
user engagement with available chatbots has not reached the popularity of other channels
such as mobile applications yet, and most chatbots created so far do not provide much
functionality, but instead redirect users to their existing products.
With increasing interest, engagement and financial investments, the arise of more sophisticated
products can be expected in the future.

3.6 Advantages of Using Chatbots

As explained previously in 3.2 on page 9, the interest in chatbots and conversational interfaces
increased in recent time mainly driven by the popularity of messaging platforms, mobile
devices, and personal assistants, and also by the advancements made in the field of artificial
intelligence. The conditions are right to think about taking advantage of the possibilities in
the newly available market, however, the question remaining is what can chatbots achieve
that existing solutions are not good at, both, from a user’s point of view and looking at the
interests of companies.

From a user’s viewpoint chatbots can be seen as alternative interfaces to interact with
computers.
Existing interfaces are often not intuitive for humans. Humans need to initially learn how to
use the technology. With every new application one installs and every new website one visits,
there is a new interface to adapt to. “Adjusting to a machine does not come naturally to us.
With every app you need to learn how to use it. ... Conversations come naturally to us” [32].
Conversation is a way of communicating that humans already know how to use. It is the
fundamental method for humans to interact with other humans. If it is possible to use this
communication technology also to interact with machines, the interface would be by default
intuitive for humans to use. “The vision for a chatbot: get machines to respond to questions
like a human being” [32].

Further, there is a trend in consumer behavior of “outsourcing their "chores", such as driving,
shopping, cleaning, food delivery, errands” [33] to companies that offer these services.

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Service companies are not a new occurrence, however in the past it took more effort to
coordinate the usage of such services. By using technology to automate many steps of the
coordination process, not only the cost can be lowered, but also the friction for customers to
use a service is reduced significantly. Managing and coordinating the usage of such services are
tasks conversational interfaces are particularly suited for because this is a scenario that profits
especially from the simplicity and low friction that characterize conversational interfaces.

Users can also profit from technical advantages chatbots have over native applications and
websites.
Native applications need to be downloaded upfront, including all their resources and not just
the ones required at this moment. Websites are slimmer and only the resources required to
load the current page need to be downloaded, but one page still contains not only content,
but also layout information, styling, decorative images and in most cases also JavaScript to
run some additional logic in the web browser. The only thing a chatbots needs to download
over the network is content. Everything else is provided by the platform it is embedded in.
Compared to existing solutions, “a chatbot uses very low bandwidth” [32], which can be an
important advantage not only for the perceived responsiveness, but especially in scenarios
with slow network connections.

Providing customers a more intuitive and more direct way of interacting with a company’s
product is already a compelling reason for a company to be interested in the new platforms.
But there are additional benefits companies can draw from conversational interfaces, which
are not perceivable by users.

First, “the cost of developing a chatbot is one-third of what is required in developing a mobile
app” [32]. This might not be the case for every product but in general, creating a chatbot is
less work than creating a mobile application, because neither is custom design required nor is
it necessary to write code for the logic controlling the user interface.

Next, “Chat apps also have higher retention and usage rates than most mobile apps” [34].
Since chatbots are part of a chat application they can take advantage of being where the
attention of mobile phone users already is. A chatbot can therefore potentially gain more
user engagement than a competing website or mobile application.

Another aspect of using natural language as an interface is that “chatbots are able to gain

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invaluable data and insights on user behavior” [35], because firstly, users have the freedom
to send any kind of information and feedback, and secondly, being in the context of an
informal conversation people tend to be more talkative than they would be in a more formal
environment. Especially for companies such as media outlets or retailers being able to further
profile users can be a useful assistance in tailoring personal experiences for users and targeting
them with individual offers. Additional context and user data is also available on the platform
itself; when interacting with a user via a chatbot on the Facebook Messenger platform, all
public information of the user’s Facebook profile is also available for the company to use for
further personalization.

Lastly, the most fundamental reason for a company to be interested in chatbots is the before
mentioned popularity and ubiquity of messenger applications. “The question brands and
publishers now face is how to engage with these private social network users” [35]. When the
attention of users is shifting away from not only non-digital media but also away from other
mobile applications and traditional social networks, companies need to find a way to reach
users at the place they spend most of their time at.

3.7 Limitations

While chatbots have many promising properties, chatbots also come with restrictions which
frame them as unfeasible solutions in certain scenarios.

One fundamental property of the architecture of chatbot systems, is that they are not
software running on the device of the user. They mimic the nature of chat, that two parties
communicating with each other are using two separate devices. This fundamental design of
chatbot implementations is similar to the basic idea of browsing the world wide web, whereby
a network connection is a mandatory requirement. Typically network connections are part of
the Internet and such a system can be described as purely online.
This underlying design has certain implications for the usage of chatbots.

First and foremost, this implies that all scenarios, which are obliged to work without a
network connection, cannot make use of chatbots. Exemplary areas of applications affected
by this implication are applications that forbid network connections due to high security
standards and also products targeting rural and remote locations with unstable network
connections.

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Another consequence is that a certain amount of latency is unavoidable with networked

applications. When information needs to be transfered from one device to another, it needs
to be transported through more physical space.
For a chatbot based on Facebook Messenger, this means information needs to be transfered
from the user’s device to a data center, where Facebook is operating their Messenger platform,
further to another server where the developed chatbot software is running, and back to the
user through the intermediary data center. Many factors influence the accumulated latency,
of which certain factors can hardly be influenced by the developers and operators of the
chatbot software. Aspects of networking such as the capabilities of the user’s devices, the
conditions the Internet service provider of the user is operating under, domain name lookups,
IP package routing and associated package loss, the locations of Facebook’s data centers, and
the performance of event processing and forwarding of the Messenger platform, are only a
selection of unknowns when operating a chatbot.
The unavoidable latency and the unpredictable parties involved in the networking layout
make it clear, that chatbots are not suitable for any time-critical applications. It can not be
guaranteed that a user receives a response within an unnoticeable period of milliseconds or
with a delay of tens of seconds.

Not only the dependency on the network is limiting the capabilities of chatbots, but also the
very idea of using chat as a medium. While text is undoubtedly a powerful medium, there
are certain applications where other media are better suited. Many messaging platforms
already enhance the communication by adding interface elements such as buttons and by
allowing multimedia content such as images and videos to be sent. However the linear layout
fundamental to text communication remains and its immutable nature limits interactivity.
While chat can be a very simple and efficient way of communicating and it is appropriate
in many scenarios, other use cases are address better with existing solutions such as native
or browser-based applications. Obvious candidates, which are better served with other
technology are photo and video editing applications and also 3D gaming.

Due to the limitations the medium chatbot has, it can be anticipated that, while they address
many needs of human-computer interaction, they are not universally applicable and they are
not able to replace all other media. Much in the same way that the invention of radio has not
replaced newspapers and neither did the introduction of television replace radio, chatbots
can be seen as a new possible communication concept, but they can coexist with previous

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technology in a way that each of them focuses on the area they are best suited for.
Understanding not only the merits but also the limitations of a medium is essential for deciding
whether the medium is a good fit for a use case or if another medium is a better suited solution.

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To not only understand where chatbots can be applied but to also understand how a chatbot
can be created in practice, this chapter guides through the development of an example
chatbot. The description of the development process is kept on a more general level and
many aspects of the presented architecture and solution can be reused when creating other
kinds of chatbots.
First of all a suited application needs to be chosen and specified in its requirements. Before
starting with the implementation, possible usage scenarios need to be defined and matching
user stories have to be created. When all requirements are set, appropriate platforms, tooling
and solutions can be selected. After all preparations are done the technical implementation
can take place.

4.1 Choosing a Practical Example

A suitable application for a chatbot needs to be selected before thinking about implementation
details.

As illustrated earlier, chatbots can be used to cater a wide variety of applications. Since
this application should be a demonstration of the different aspects of developing chatbots, it
should not be too simplistic in scope. An appropriate example covers more than one of the
product categories described in section 3.5 on page 16, while being, at the same time, not
too technical challenging in a specific problem domain outside of chatbot development.
A service, that accepts image files and returns the same picture with a filter applied, might be
an interesting and entertaining use case for a chatbot, however, it would not be an adequate
example to give a general introduction to chatbot development since, even though it would
be a technical interesting task to solve regarding image processing, it would not illustrate
much technical details in the domain of chatbot development.

The here selected example application is a system for individual language studying.

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While this idea arises from a personal need for such a system and an observed shortage in the
functionalities existing solutions provide, this application also fulfills the stated requirements
of a suitable example application.
The language studying chatbot covers multiple of the categories defined in section 3.5.
It is mainly an optimization chatbot improving the task of language studying, but the chatbot
can also be classified as a proactive chatbot because it can use proactive features to notify
the user when it is time for studying.
Although there is a necessity to understand parts of the problem domain of language studying,
the required domain-specific knowledge is minimal.
The idea is to build a system independent from existing learning resources that users can
use to study their own vocabulary. Since there is no need to focus on content for specific
languages, the main focus remains implementing the chatbot features, which are primarily,
that a user is able to input new vocabulary, and then the system tests the user’s knowledge
in appropriate studying intervals.

4.2 Existing Solutions

When starting a new project, it is helpful to research existing solutions which solve similar
problems. There are already a variety of existing software applications for language studying,
which have various use cases and solve different problems.
One significant separation is between software that includes content and software users can
utilize and customize to study personal content.

The first segment is the most prominent. This software is intended to enable people to
self-study language and, at least partially, replace physical language courses. A main reason
for the prominence of this segment is the ability to sell content. Professionally curating the
curriculum for a language course requires teaching expertise and takes a lot of effort. Because
of this, good content for language studying remains expensive, not only in software but also
in the form of physical textbooks. One popular example from this segment is Duolingo.
“Duolingo has courses in a handful of languages.... The courses are structured in a way like
games as well - you earn skill points as you complete lessons” [36].
Interestingly, Duolingo recently released a chatbot [37] as part of their iPhone application
which enables the user to have a text-based conversation about certain topics with a chatbot
to learn the appropriate phrases for the given scenario. Although the topics and possible
phrases are restricted in each scenario, this is a first example of how chatbots can be used for

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language studying.

The second segment consists of software which does not provide users a guideline for what
to study, but is instead intended to support users studying their own vocabulary. Most of
software belonging to this segment are attempts at bringing traditional flashcards to digital
media.
One of the most established applications in the second segment is Anki [36], which exists
for more than ten years already and provides a flexible, but also rather complex, interface
to create various kinds of studying material. Another more recent competitor is Memrise,
which gives users a more intuitive interface, that also includes several gamification1 features
to make the studying process more appealing. Both mentioned products are not restricted to
a field of study and users are able to add their own content. Furthermore both products also
offer mechanisms for users to share content with others, which allows users to reuse what
other users created.

For the in this work planned chatbot example the second segment is more fitting, since there
are no resources in the current context to curate professional content.

The following implementation is an attempt at creating a software product with a conversa-

tional text interface that is in its use cases similar to products like Anki and Duolingo while
making use of the unique features the medium chatbot provides.

4.3 Use Cases and Requirements

Building on the analysis of existing solutions in 4.2 on page 24, features for the chatbot need
to be specified. An effective method for gathering crucial features is to find potential users
and create usage scenarios for their individual needs.

To apply this method, the fundamental problem the application is solving needs to be defined
first.
The issue this chatbot is trying to help with is the study of individual vocabulary. The goal is
not to provide studying material in a way a language course or a textbook does, but instead
to complement these resources with a tool to study new vocabulary and phrases students

1 The Oxford Dictionaries describe gamification as “the application of typical elements of game playing (e.g.
point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to other areas of activity” [38]

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pick up while studying or in different situations in every day life.

4.3.1 User Stories

The following are two hypothetic scenarios of individuals that might use the chatbot and
both profit from it in different ways.

Clara is a 22 years old American. She moved to New York City to go to university. Currently
she is in the last year of her bachelor degree in economics. In university she signed up
for an evening class in Mandarin. She uses Facebook Messenger every day to talk to her
friends and she discovered the chatbot when a friend sent her a link. For her the most
difficult part of the studies is to write hànzì, the Chinese characters. Now Clara uses the
chatbot to write down vocabulary in hànzì during her class, and at home she revises the new
characters by going through them using the chatbot and writing the characters down on paper.

Pierre is 29 years and born in Bordeaux, France. He studied computer science and a year
ago he moved to Berlin where he found a job in a startup. At work all communication is
done in English since the team consists of people from all around the globe. Because Pierre
is not a native English speaker, he picks up new words at work almost every single day. Since
moving to Berlin Pierre also made a few German friends and he tries to pick up new words
they teach him. He found the chatbot on a news website for technology products, and since
then whenever Pierre learns a new word he grabs his phone from his pocket and adds the
word to the chatbot. Since the chatbot has no restrictions on what to learn, Pierre uses it to
save both, German and English, vocabulary in one place. Pierre’s daily commute from and
to work takes 40 minutes twice a day. Now he uses his commute time to take out his phone
and review new vocabulary he picked up the previous days.

4.3.2 Functional Requirements

All necessary functional requirements can be extracted from the above defined user stories.
First, a user needs to be able to add new vocabulary. There should not be any restrictions on
what can be added and vocabulary should not be limited to single words, because in many
cases it is more helpful to add whole phrases instead. Each vocabulary consists of the phrase

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the user tries to memorize and an explanation to help understanding the meaning of the
phrase.
Next, the chatbot should provide a way to revise vocabulary. There should be two possible
modes for revising; one where users can click a button to tell whether they remembered the
phrase correctly or not, and a second mode whereby users type out the phrase themselves.
In each case the system should keep track of whether users knew the correct solution or not.
Lastly, it is necessary to determine what to study next. A user should not be required to
think about what or when to review vocabulary. The chatbot needs a system to decide the
review time for each vocabulary, and ideally the user is notified when vocabulary is ready to
be reviewed by sending a message to the user.
These three main features can be seen as a sufficient minimal viable product, or MVP.

For demonstration purposes it is desired to keep the product as simple as possible. The knowl-
edge that can be taken from making decisions about the implementation and walking through
the process of creating the chatbot, is mostly independent from this particular product and
can be applied to the development of other chatbot products.

4.3.3 Non-functional Requirements

Since this is a simple example, non-functional requirements remain minimal.
Availability of the service is not a priority, but chatbot software can be scaled similar to other
software, and redundancy can be used to ensure availability. Since messaging platforms act
as intermediary between users and the chatbot software, most platforms also re-send missed
messages in case the chatbot is unavailable. That the platform ensures availability, further
lessens the priority to address it in the chatbot software itself.
Similarly, security is not a main focus here, because the messaging platform itself already
handles certain security-sensitive functionality such as authentication and encryption of
communication. A production scenario, though, would require further care for securing the
service.
Performance is equally not a major concern. Because the scope of the example application is
limited, the domain specific logic remains inexpensive in computation. The main performance
bottleneck is the in 3.7 on page 20 mentioned aspect of networking and involved unknown
parties. Employing performance-improving solutions for networking issues won’t be a part of
the example chatbot, but performance can be improved by choosing geographically strategic
located data centers for deploying the chatbot software.

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A more central requirement is reusability. Although the example focuses on solving a specific
task, the software architecture should be designed in a way, that appropriate parts can
be reused for other chatbots in the future. To ensure reusability the software should be
documented, stable and extensible.
Usability can be seen as the most important non-functional requirement. The focus of develop-
ing the example chatbot is to design a good user experience and to explore how interface and in-
teraction design can be best accomplished with the given medium.

4.4 Technical Setup

After knowing the features the chatbot should support, technical requirements can be extracted
and appropriate technology chosen for the implementation.

4.4.1 Communication
As discussed in 3.4 on page 15, there are two fundamental ways for communicating with a
user, interface elements and natural language.
Since the previous defined features for the minimal viable product of the example chatbot
require not many options, everything can be represented with unambitious interface elements.
However, complimentary to guiding the user with interface elements natural language is
required to capture user input. When adding new vocabulary, phrases and their explanations
need to be captured, and likewise, when studying the user’s guesses need to be evaluated.
The implementation of this chatbot demonstrates the complementing use of interface elements
and natural language side by side.
By relying solely on simple input parsing and no advanced natural language processing
techniques, a major source of complexity of chatbot development can be avoided. While
there are useful techniques that enable previous impossible use cases, they are not necessary
to explore the fundamentals and paradigms of chatbot development.

4.4.2 Platform Selection

An important question to answer when developing a chatbot is which platform to target.
As shown in 3.3 on page 10 there are many possible target platforms and some of them are
fundamentally different to others. Deciding for a voice-based platform like Alexa, for SMS or
for a messenger platform has consequences for all further decisions.

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For the example case, a voice-based interface is less appropriate since users should be able to
control the precise spelling of the vocabulary and further, there is currently no voice-based
platform available that supports multiple languages simultaneously.
SMS communication is better suited for scenarios that only need to send a low number of
messages, since there are costs for each sent text message. As of writing, Twilio, a cloud
communications service, charges $0.0075 for receiving and $0.085 for sending a message when
using their Global Short Message Service API in Germany [39]. Supposed the chatbot has
1000 active users that all study 100 phrases daily, the costs would accumulate to $277,500
of monthly expenses2 . These prices are affordable if a company is selling airplane tickets or
something similar, but in other scenarios another messaging platform will be a better option.
By choosing a messaging application as target platform, there are no monthly costs to be
taken care of. Additionally there are further interface elements than only plain text available
for interaction. But there are many major existing messaging applications, therefore deciding
for one can be difficult.
As shown in 3.3 on page 13, different platforms have geographically different target markets.
If a chatbot targets the Chinese market WeChat would be the obvious platform to choose;
likewise Japan would be targeted by using Line. In North America and Europe Facebook
Messenger and Facebook’s WhatsApp are currently the leading platforms. Since as of writing,
WhatsApp does not provide publicly available access to the platform, Facebook Messenger is
the biggest platform one can currently target.
As mentioned in 3.3.1 on page 14, there are also solutions to create chatbots using a framework
that allows to release a chatbot to multiple platforms at the same time, but as previously
noted such a framework also has drawbacks.
With a number of limitations and the goal of keeping the example as simple as possible,
it will be implemented for Facebook Messenger as single platform without abstracting the
process by using third-party frameworks.

The registration and configuration of a chatbot for Facebook Messenger is not explained in
detail here, since Facebook’s online documentation already covers detailed explanations and
the majority of the settings are specific to each chatbot.
Facebook refers to a chatbot in Messenger simply as bot, and to create a Messenger bot it
is required to initially create a Facebook Page and an application for the page. Afterwards
Messenger can be added as a product to the application. Further information can be found

2 1000 ⇥ 100 ⇥ 30 ⇥ (0.085 + 0.0075) = 277, 500

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in the developer documentation.3

Integration

The development of a chatbot for Facebook Messenger is similar to most other platforms.
When creating and configuring a chatbot, the developer registers a WebHook. “The concept
of a WebHook is simple. A WebHook is an HTTP callback: an HTTP POST that occurs
when something happens; a simple event-notification via HTTP POST” [40]. After the setup
was successful, Facebook sends HTTP POST requests to the registered URL containing
event information for every message a user sends to the chatbot. This way developers have
complete control over handling each message on an arbitrary machine that is reachable via a
public URL.

4.4.3 Server Technology

At this point that the interaction with the platform is decided, the application can be created
on a custom server, and it has to be decided how to structure the application running on this
server.

Programming Language

Since all interaction with the platform happens via HTTP, there is no restriction on which
programming language to use as long as it can be accessed through HTTP.
Chatbots can be written in any programming language.
Depending on the specific application, different programming languages are better suited
than others.
In the example case there are not many specific technological requirements. However, to be
able to send notifications to users when their studies are ready, the system requires a way to
schedule timers. The timers need to be lightweight enough to be re-scheduled for every user
activity that can affect the time the notification is scheduled for.
Single-threaded programming languages, such as Python, Ruby or PHP, mostly use sepa-
rate worker processes to handle scheduled jobs, but in this case there would need to be a
worker process for each user waiting until it is time to send notifications to the specific user.
Another way to handle this in single-threaded programming languages is by using a system
for asynchronous, evented I/O, such as the asyncio module for Python [41] or the Node.js

3 https://developers.facebook.com/products/messenger

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JavaScript runtime [42].

The example chatbot is created with the Go programming language [43]. Go is a multi-
threaded language which allows for taking advantage of all available CPUs on a machine
without the overhead of creating new processes. It is well suited for scheduling notifications
and Go includes a robust web server in the standard library which can be exposed to the
public Internet without a proxy server, which is a common approach with the previous
mentioned programming languages.
With this setup there are less moving parts to take care of and the example can be a simple,
self-contained application.

Data Storage

In the example case data needs to be stored and it should be stored locally on the same
machine to keep the application simple.
Since a user can save new vocabulary, there needs to be a way to store information for each
user. For the studying itself, further information has to be stored. It is necessary to keep
track of correct and incorrect user reviews, it needs to be decided when to study next and
the time of the last study needs to be tracked too.
To send notifications additional information has to be stored. It is necessary to know when
the user was last active and if the user saw the last notification. Notifications should only be
send when the user is not currently active and saw the last notification.
All of the required information is always bound to a single user. Users can never share
information with each other. There are no further relations in the data. Without relational
data the features that relational databases such as MySQL or PostgreSQL provide are not
used; instead a simple key-value store can be sufficient for storing the data.
The example uses an embedded key-value store called BoltDB [44], which does not need a
separate process and saves data on disk in a single file.

These technical decisions are the base for the following description of the chatbot implemen-
tation.

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4.5 Features and Interaction Design

At this point it is defined what the example chatbot should be

able to do, and which technologies are used for its implemen-
tation.
Before looking at the technical implementation, the us-
age of the chatbot is shown from a user’s point of view.
The following is a presentation of the features of the chat-
bot and the design of the interactions to use these fea-
tures.

A Facebook Page and a Facebook Messenger bot have been cre-

ated under the name Studybot. By not publishing the Facebook
Page, the chatbot remains only accessible for administrators of
the Facebook Page.
The demonstration uses the Messenger Android application,
but Messenger bots can also be accesses through applications Figure 4.1: Search
on other platforms or using the web version of Facebook.

When using the Messenger application as administrator, the

chatbot can be found by using the search as shown in figure
4.1.

After navigating to the chatbot, a description becomes

visible. This can be seen in figure 4.2. It con-
tains the profile image of the Facebook Page the chat-
bot belongs to, the category the Facebook Page is
part of, and a text describing the functionality of
the chatbot, whereby all of these elements can be de-
fined by the developer of the chatbot. A button la-
beled Get Started is displayed at the bottom of the
screen.

When pressing the Get Started button, a message is sent to Figure 4.2: Get Started Screen
the chatbot, and as indicated by the dots visible in figure 4.3

32
 4 Development

Figure 4.3: Introduction to Studybot

on the left image, the chatbot is active and about to send a reply. In normal conversations
the dots indicate that a user is typing. For chatbots they indicate that the chatbot received
the message and is crafting a reply.

The image in the middle of figure 4.3 shows the first message sent to users. They are greeted
with their first name to create a more personal feeling atmosphere. The greeting is followed
by two sentences explaining the chatbot.

When working with text as a medium, it is especially critical to focus on the most important
information. In graphical interfaces users can get an impression with a single glance, but to
perceive the meaning of text users need to read word by word. In most scenarios the time
users are willing to invest in understanding a product is limited, every word in a text has to
be selected carefully.

It can be seen in the image on the right of figure 4.3 that a second message is sent to the
user. The second message is delivered 5 seconds later than the first one to not overwhelm the
users with too much information at once. This message contains instructions to begin using
the application. The instructions are additionally illustrated by providing an example for a
message in the expected format.

33
 4 Development

Figure 4.4: Adding three phrases

At this point the user needs to interact with the chat-

bot. Figure 4.4 shows how a user adds phrases
to Studybot. To begin, users first type the phrase
in the foreign language they would like to study,
they then add a line-break, and finally add an ex-
planation for the preceding phrase on the next line.
After the phrase is sent to the chatbot, a confir-
mation message is displayed to keep the user up-
dated about the current state. This is followed
by another message prompting the user to add more
words.

For a chatbot it is critical to always keep the user in-

formed about the next expected action, therefore most
messages should end with a prompt for the next in- Figure 4.5: Stop adding phrases
put.

Figure 4.4 show how a user adds three phrases to Studybot. The image in the middle has a

34
 4 Development

button labeled as stop adding displayed at the bottom of the messages, which users can
use as an alternative way for interacting with the chatbot, when they wish to stop adding
phrases.

Figure 4.5 shows, that after stopping the adding of phrases, the user is prompted with an
array of four possible actions. The actions are labeled as study, + phrases, help and done.
Each button label also contains an emoji4 used as icon for the action to make it easier to
recognize for users.
When the usage of graphical elements is limited and one has to rely mainly on text for
communication, emojis can be a helpful substitution for traditional icons to provide graphical
guidance.

The chatbot has different modes of interaction. Internally the chatbot needs to keep track of
the current mode of each user to be able to address each message in the correct context.
In figure 4.5 the user has left the mode for adding words and entered the menu mode which
provides access to other modes.

Figure 4.6: Attempt to study and activation of notifications

4 “Emoji are pictographs (pictorial symbols) that are typically presented in a colorful form and used inline
in text. They represent things such as faces, weather, vehicles and buildings, food and drink, animals and
plants, or icons that represent emotions, feelings, or activities.” [45]

35
 4 Development

By clicking on the button labeled study, the user switches to the mode for studying of the
previously added vocabulary. However, as the image on the left of figure 4.6 shows, the only
recently added phrases cannot be studied yet.

Studybot uses a concept known as spaced repetition system, or short SRS, which makes use of
the so called spacing effect. “Information that is spaced over time is better remembered than
the same amount of information massed together” [46]. Based on this approach users need to
wait before studying newly added vocabulary. The more often a phrase is guessed correctly
the less frequent the user will be asked to review the phrase.

Figure 4.7: Notification message and beginning of study

Since added phrases can not be studied directly, the user is instead offered to receive a
notification message once phrases are ready for review.

When sending notifications to users, it is crucial to not send more messages than necessary.
Depending on the messenger platform, there are also policies in place on how many messages
are permitted. The platform policy of Facebook Messenger clearly requires to “respect all
requests (either on Messenger or off) by people to block, discontinue, or otherwise opt-out of
your using Messenger to communicate with them” [47], which means that there needs to be a
way for users to disable the sending of notifications. Further the platform policy clarifies that

36
 4 Development

“you may message people within 24 hours of a person’s interaction with your business or Bot
..., and until the next interaction, you may send one additional message after this 24 hour
period in order to follow up on your conversation” [47].
How notifications can be disabled in Studybot will not be further explained here, but an
illustration of the feature can be found in the appendix in figure A.1 on page 47.

Figure 4.8: Study using buttons or by typing

In figure 4.7 a notification from the Messenger application is shown on the mobile phone. It
is triggered when enough studies are ready to be reviewed. When opening the conversation
with the chatbot, the user is now prompted to study.
As defined as a requirement in 4.3.2 on page 26, while studying one is free to choose to answer
either by using the buttons at the bottom of the screen or by directly typing the correct
phrase.
The x button available on the right image of figure 4.7, allows users to delete a phrase. Since
there is no possibility in Facebook Messenger to display a long list of interactive elements to
the user, creating separate functionality for editing and deleting phrases is difficult to achieve,
and during studying is the only possible moment to refer to a phrase.

The figures 4.7 and 4.8 show a subtle decision to display the buttons users are most likely to
interact with on the right side.

37
 4 Development

The current interface language is English and it is written from left to right. Since humans
scan the interface in the same order as they read, it is more intuitive to show the most
important information on the left. However certain interactions, like studying, need to be
performed so frequently, that a user will remember the location of the buttons quickly and
does not need to scan the interface every single time.
In this scenario it is helpful to have the most used action on the right side, because the
majority of humans are right-handed [48], and they can therefore reach the buttons on the
right with less effort since they are closer to the thumb when using a mobile phone with a
single hand.

Figure 4.9: Send feedback and receive a reply

A feature, that is outside of the main flow of Studybot, is the sending of feedback to the
developers of the chatbot. As shown in figure 4.9, it can be accessed after pressing the help
button. This feature is not specific to language studying and it is useful for most chatbots.
Normally all messages are answered automatically by the chatbot, but there should be a
way for users to talk to the human developers or administrators that provide the chatbot.
The feature is automated by sending the messages that users send as feedback to a Slack
channel [49]. Additionally administrators can directly reply to user messages inside Slack
and the replies are send back to the correct users within the chatbot.

38
 4 Development

Figure 4.9 shows the flow for sending feedback from a user’s point of view. The exact
implementation is hidden from users, but simplifying the sending of replies by using an
existing medium like Slack, can minimize the manual work required to maintain a personal
feature like this.

All primary interactions the example chatbot provides have been covered above. Many of
the implemented interactions can be transfered and reused when creating other kinds of
chatbots; addressing users by name, sending text in small chunks with a delay in between,
prompting users for specific input with every message, keeping track of the context of each
user, asking for permission before sending notifications, consciously ordering buttons and
supporting custom user feedback, these patterns can be applied in many different scenarios.

The resulting functionality and implementation of the example chatbot can be summarized
as finding the simplest possible interaction for the user to get a task done, which is expressed
well in the following quote from the newspaper The Guardian about the lessons they learned
by developing a chatbot:

A lot of users responded as they would to a human, and when they got non-human
responses, they’d stop using it, said Wilk. So the Guardian went in the opposite
direction with its news bot and aimed for utter simplicity. The lesson, according
to Wilk, was: “Don’t build people’s expectations too much of what’s possible,
just keep it simple.” [50]

4.6 Server Architecture

The following is an overview about how Studybot has been created. Instead of covering all
details, the focus here is to communicate the underlying concepts, which are not unique to this
specific chatbot and thereby enable others to apply these patterns in their own development.

There are numerous resources available today that demonstrate the development of chatbots.
However a majority of existing materials rely on specific services, frameworks or libraries for
the implementation. The implementation of Studybot demonstrates all basics necessary for
the creation of a chatbot without relying on external tooling; the code-base has no external
dependencies, with the exception of a package for the database.

5 The graph has been created with godepgraph [51]

39
 4 Development

Figure 4.10: Package dependency graph5

The Graph in figure 4.10 shows the overall architecture of the chatbot. The main package
handles only configuration, setup and tear-down. It instantiates the data store from package
brain and starts web servers listening on two separate ports for the packages messenger
and admin.
The store has a connection to the database and it is responsible for all domain-specific
business logic of Studybot. Both servers use the store to fetch data and they therefore depend
on package brain.
Package admin only provides functionality for internal use by the administrators of the
chatbot; one of its main responsibilities is to handle communication with Slack for the
feedback feature, which was mentioned in 4.5 on page 38.
Package messenger is responsible for processing all events received from the Facebook Mes-
senger platform and sending replies back to users.
It relies on another package named fbot, which is a simple abstraction over functionality of
the Facebook Messenger platform. Communication in this package happens via JSON over
HTTP. Since this is a custom package, it is specifically designed to be used in this chatbot.
It only needs to support data types and parameters that are relevant to this chatbot.

Most of the code base and its architecture are structure the same way most other servers are
organized; the logic specific to the development of the chatbot is contained in the package
messenger. Figure 4.11 illustrates the behavior of this package. For brevity calls to the
packages brain and fbot are not included in the graphic.
The upper half of the graphic in 4.11 shows function calls, that are invoked from package

6 The visualization has been created with go-callvis [52]

40
 4 Development

Figure 4.11: Call Graph of the messenger package6

main for initializing an instance of the type Bot.

The type Bot provides functionality to handle events coming from the Facebook Messenger
platform and to send generated responses back to users.
The function HandleEvent, which can be seen in figure 4.11, is called by package fbot with
every event the WebHook receives, and it is the main entry-point to the chatbot logic. By
handling different types of events, HandleEvent tracks whenever a user reads a message, and
it sends a message back to users, whereby it needs to be differentiated between handling text
messages and predefined buttons.
In addition to directly responding to users, HandleEvent is also the trigger for scheduling
notifications. With every action of users, the next time they receive a notification needs to be
rescheduled, which happens in the call to the internal function scheduleNotify. The function
in 4.11 labeled as scheduleNotify$1 is an anonymous callback function, one for each user, that
is called by the scheduled timer to send a message to a user.
Further, it is visible in 4.11, that package admin can call a function named SendMessage

41
 4 Development

which belongs to the Bot type. This is used to send replies from Slack back to users.

Call graphs for the packages main, admin and fbot can be found in the appendix starting
on page 48. Additionally the Go documentation for all exported types and functions can be
found on page 50. It explains specific implementations in more detail.

Separating and containing logic specific to the chosen platform, in this case Facebook Mes-
senger, simplifies adopting the chatbot to new platforms in the future.
The development of a chatbot can be summarized as being a slight variation of already
known server-side development. Chatbot software is fundamentally a server accepting HTTP
requests from a messenger platforms and sending HTTP responses back to the messenger
platform. Developing such a system should be familiar for developers who have created
web applications with server-side rendering in the past, since state management and request
processing work in the same manner. While the receiving of user events can be approached
with known patterns, the sending of replies back to users requires a paradigm shift in thinking.
Technically, responses are also rendered and sent to users, but the rendering has no custom
underlying interface as it is the case when rendering HTML for web pages. Instead, primarily
plain text and only few platform-specific interface elements are available for presenting
content.
Apart from potential use of complex natural language technology, the main difficulty of chatbot
development is the design of user interfaces for the medium chat.

42
5 Future Development

To conclude the exploration of chatbots, a more opinionated take on the merits of chatbots
and also ideas in which direction their role could evolve in the future are given based on
thoughts from different people active in the field.

To begin with it should be clarified that text is a great medium for communication as this
quote illustrates:

Text is the most socially useful communication technology. It works well in 1:1,
1:N, and M:N modes. It can be indexed and searched efficiently, even by hand.
It can be translated. It can be produced and consumed at variable speeds. It
is asynchronous. It can be compared, diffed, clustered, corrected, summarized
and filtered algorithmically. It permits multiparty editing. It permits branching
conversations, lurking, annotation, quoting, reviewing, summarizing, structured
responses, exegesis, even fan fic. The breadth, scale and depth of ways people use
text is unmatched by anything. [53]

But no matter how useful text is, users prefer to not to type out everything in text. “If
something can be tapped/clicked instead of typing, they prefer that” [54].
The idea of chatbots has been existing for a long time, but only recently messenger platforms
started adding features that help developers to make chatbots more user-friendly.
“Through our journey, we have understood that the best way to build bots for businesses
is through a hybrid approach – use of buttons and quick replies along with text-based
queries. This approach helps both businesses and customers,” says Mounish, a co-founder
of the bot builder platforms MindIQ [32]. Neither is natural language processing based on
the latest advancements in machine learning and artificial intelligence a solution for every
problem:

“Adding natural language for simple domains is overkill,” says Dennis Thomas,
CTO at NeuraFlash, which develops AI tools that integrate into Salesforce ...

43
 5 Future Development

“When you have a visual medium and buttons can accomplish the task in a couple
clicks (think easy re-order), open-ended natural language is not making the user’s
life easier.” [55]

Text and natural language enable new kinds of products, where the focus is more on flexible
and individual behavior than on accuracy.
A “place where NLP is a big win is when the bot’s objective is focused on helping users with
the discovery phase of products or shopping.” [55] Businesses selling goods, newspapers that
need to spread their content and travel agencies helping customers to create individual jour-
neys, these are some branches which are currently particularly interested in the possibilities
of natural language. Two areas the usage of chatbots is promising for are health care and
banking [56] because these fields involve a big amount of customer service of which many
common situations could potentially be automated with machine-based customer support.

Another interesting development, apart from enhancements of the interfaces and natural
language, is the in 3.5 on page 17 mentioned category of personal assistants:
Many chatbots, including the created example, are designed to only solve specific problems.
They are forced to prevent users from trying to use them for tasks outside of their area of
expertise. Personal assistants do not have these limitations and systems like Siri or Google
Assistant have the potential to evolve into universal assistants as imagined in science fiction
movies and literature [57].
Particularly interesting ideas are open systems where third-party developers can add addi-
tional capabilities, and the personal assistant has a mechanism of delegating specific tasks to
the third-party systems. An example is the development of skills for Amazon’s Alexa [58].

Lastly, after focusing on chatbots for the whole time, it can be questioned if this is the right
terminology after all:

The term “chatbot” sets an expectation around the user experience that the
technology can’t deliver. “Chat” is a very human word. You chat with your
friends. You have chat with your neighbor. Chatting has specific connotations –
it’s very casual and easy. Chats meander, and you can take them any direction
you want. ... If business users think “chatbots” are trivial, or if they simply prefer
a fancier word to refer to the function (“business process automation”) then we’re
setting ourselves up for hard conversations with potential business buyers. [59]

44
 5 Future Development

Depending on the circumstances a different term can be more appropriate.

No matter whether we call them chatbot, business process automation or simply bot, they give
opportunities to explore new product ideas and bring the power and convenience of text to the
applications, that users already spend most of their time with.

45
6 Conclusions

This work introduced the fundamentals of what chatbots are.

It gave an overview about ideas, products and platforms, both, from the past and available
today. The current interest in chatbots, potential use cases and limitations have been
explored in detail. Different aspects of the implementation of a chatbot and working with
conversational interfaces have been presented through the creation of an exemplary chatbot,
which included interaction and user experience design, and a general, reusable software
architecture for chatbots.
While not all aspects can be covered within the context of this work, the goal was to
give an overview about what chatbots are, their use cases and how to create them. This
knowledge should help exploring further possibilities of chatbot usage and it should enable
more developers to apply chatbots to new scenarios and thereby also improve human-machine
interaction in general.

46
A Figures

Figure A.1: Disable notifications

47
B Call Graphs

Figure B.1: Call Graph of package main

48
 B Call Graphs

Figure B.2: Call Graph of package admin

Figure B.3: Call Graph of package fbot

49
 C Documentation

Listing C.1: Command line interface usage

1 Studybot - Facebook Messenger bot
2
3 Usage : studybot [ flags ]
4
5 Studybot uses BoltDB as a database .
6 Data is stored in a single file . No external system is needed .
7 However , only one application can access the database at a time .
8
9 Studybot starts a server to serve a webhook handler that can be registered as a Messenger
bot .
10 The server is HTTP only and a proxy server should be used to make the bot available on
11 a public domain , preferably HTTPS only .
12
13 An admin server runs on a separate port .
14 It should be proxied and secured via HTTPS + basic auth .
15 The admin server provides an endpoint to fetch backups of the database .
16 Further , it provides an endpoint that can be registered as Slack Outgoing Webhook .
17
18 When users send feedback to the bot , the messages are forwarded to Slack
19 and admin replies in Slack are send back to the users .
20
21
22 Flags :
23 - admin int
24 Port admin interface listens on . ( default 8081)
25 - db string
26 Required . Path to BoltDB file . Will be created if non - existent .
27 - port int
28 Port Facebook webhook listens on . ( default 8080)
29 - slackhook string
30 Required . URL of Slack Incoming Webhook . Used to send user messages to admin .
31 - slacktoken string
32 Token for Slack Outgoing Webhook . Used to send admin answers to user messages .
33 - token string
34 Required . Messenger bot token .
35 - verify string
36 Required . Messenger bot verify token .

50
 C Documentation

Listing C.2: Go documentation for package messenger

1 package messenger
2 import " github . com / jorinvo / studybot / messenger "
3
4 Package messenger implements the Messenger bot and handles all the user
5 interaction .
6
7 FUNCTIONS
8
9 func GetFeedback ( f chan < - Feedback ) func (* Bot )
10 GetFeedback sets up user feedback to be sent to the given channel .
11
12 func LogErr ( l * log . Logger ) func (* Bot )
13 LogErr is an option to set the error logger of the bot .
14
15 func LogInfo ( l * log . Logger ) func (* Bot )
16 LogInfo is an option to set the info logger of the bot .
17
18 func Notify ( b * Bot )
19 Notify enables sending notifications when studies are ready .
20
21 func Setup ( b * Bot )
22 Setup sends greetings and the getting started message to Facebook .
23
24 func Verify ( token string ) func (* Bot )
25 Verify is an option to enable verification of the webhook .
26
27 TYPES
28
29 type Bot struct {
30 http . Handler
31 // contains filtered or unexported fields
32 }
33 Bot is a messenger bot handling webhook events and notifications . Use
34 New to setup and use register Bot as a http . Handler .
35
36 func New ( store brain . Store , token string , options ... func (* Bot ) ) ( Bot , error )
37 New creates a Bot . It can be used as a HTTP handler for the webhook . The
38 options Setup , LogInfo , LogErr , Notify , Verify , GetFeedback can be used .
39
40 func ( b Bot ) HandleEvent ( e fbot . Event )
41 HandleEvent handles a Messenger event .
42
43 func ( b Bot ) SendMessage ( id int64 , msg string ) error
44 SendMessage sends a message to a specific user .
45
46 type Feedback struct {
47 ChatID int64
48 Username string
49 Message string
50 }
51 Feedback describes a message from a user a human has to react to

51
 C Documentation

Listing C.3: Go documentation for package admin

1 package admin
2 import " github . com / jorinvo / studybot / admin "
3

4 Package admin provides an admin server that can be used to make

backups
5 and to communicate with users via Slack .
6

7 FUNCTIONS
8

9 func LogErr ( l * log . Logger ) func (* Admin )

10 LogErr is an option to set the error logger .
11

12 func SlackReply ( token string , fn func ( int64 , string ) error ) func (* Admin )
13 SlackReply isa n option to enable / slack to receive replies from Slack
.
14 token is used to validate posts to the webhook . fn is called with a
15 chatID and a message .
16

17 TYPES
18

19 type Admin struct {

20 // contains filtered or unexported fields
21 }
22 Admin is a HTTP handler that can be used for backups and to
communicate
23 with users via Slack .
24

25 func New ( store brain . Store , slackHook string , options ... func (* Admin ) )
Admin
26 New returns a new Admin which can be used as an http . Handler .
27

28 func ( a Admin ) HandleMessage ( id int64 , name , msg string )

29 HandleMessage can be called to send a user message to Slack .
30

31 func ( a Admin ) ServeHTTP ( w http . ResponseWriter , r * http . Request )

32 ServeHTTP serves the different endpoints the admin server provides .

52
 C Documentation

Listing C.4: Go documentation for package fbot

1 package fbot
2 import " github . com / jorinvo / studybot / fbot "
3
4 Package fbot can be used to communicate with a Facebook Messenger bot .
5 The supported API is limited to only the required use cases and the data
6 format is abstracted accordingly .
7
8 FUNCTIONS
9
10 func API ( url string ) func (* Client )
11 API can be passed to New for sending requests to a different URL . Must
12 not contain trailing slash .
13
14 TYPES
15
16 type Button struct {
17 // Text is the text on the button visible to the user
18 Text string
19 // Payload is a string to identify the quick reply event internally in your application .
20 Payload string
21 }
22 Button describes a text quick reply .
23
24 type Client struct {
25 // contains filtered or unexported fields
26 }
27 Client can be used to communicate with a Messenger bot .
28
29 func New ( token string , options ... func (* Client ) ) Client
30 New rerturns a new client with credentials set up .
31
32 func ( c Client ) GetProfile ( id int64 ) ( Profile , error )
33 GetProfile fetches a user profile for an ID .
34
35 func ( c Client ) Send ( id int64 , message string , buttons [] Button ) error
36 Send a text message with a set of quick reply buttons to a user .
37
38 func ( c Client ) S e t G e t S t a r t e d P a y l o a d ( p string ) error
39 S e t G e t S t a r t e d P a y l o a d displays a " Get Started " button for new users . When
40 a users pushes the button , a postback with the given payload is
41 triggered .
42
43 func ( c Client ) SetGreetings ( greetings map [ string ] string ) error
44 SetGreetings sets the text displayed in the bot description . Pass a map
45 of locale to greeting text . Include " default " locale as fallback for
46 missing locales .
47
48 func ( c Client ) Webhook ( handler func ( Event ) , verifyToken string ) http . Handler
49 Webhook returns a handler for HTTP requests that can be registered with
50 Facebook . The passed event handler will be called with all received
51 events .

53
 C Documentation

52
53 type Event struct {
54 // Type helps to decide how to react to an event .
55 Type EventType
56 // ChatID identifies the user . It ’ s a Facebook user ID .
57 ChatID int64
58 // Time describes when the event occured .
59 Time time . Time
60 // Text is a message a user send for EventMessage and and error description for
EventError .
61 Text string
62 // Payload is a predefined payload for a quick reply or postback sent with EventPayload .
63 Payload string
64 }
65 Event contains information about a user action .
66
67 type EventType int
68 EventType helps to distinguish the different type of events .
69
70 const (
71 // EventUnknown is the default and will be used if none of the other types match .
72 EventUnknown EventType = iota
73 // EventMessage is triggered when a user sends Text , stickers or other content .
74 // Only text is available at the moment .
75 EventMessage
76 // EventPayload is triggered when a quickReply or postback Payload is sent .
77 EventPayload
78 // EventRead is triggered when a user read a message .
79 EventRead
80 // EventError is triggered when the webhook is called with invalid JSON content .
81 EventError
82 )
83
84 type Profile struct {
85 Name string ‘ json :" first_name " ‘
86 Locale string ‘ json :" locale " ‘
87 Timezone float64 ‘ json :" timezone " ‘
88 }
89 Profile has all public user information we need ; needs to be in sync
90 with the URL abouve .

54
 C Documentation

Listing C.5: Go documentation for package brain

1 package brain
2 import " github . com / jorinvo / studybot / brain "
3
4 Package brain handles all business logic of Slangbrain . It handles data
5 storage , retrieving and updating . It ’ s independent from the used bot
6 platform and user interaction .
7
8 TYPES
9
10 type Mode int
11 Mode is the state of a chat . We need to keep track of the state each
12 chat is in .
13
14 const (
15 // ModeMenu shows the main menu .
16 ModeMenu Mode = iota
17 // ModeAdd lets the user add new phrases .
18 ModeAdd
19 // ModeStudy goes to phrases ready to study .
20 ModeStudy
21 // Mo deGetS tarted sends an introduction to the user .
22 Mode GetSta rted
23 // ModeFeedback allows the user to send a message that is ready by a human .
24 ModeFeedback
25 )
26
27 type Phrase struct {
28 Phrase string
29 Explanation string
30 Score int
31 }
32 Phrase describes a phrase the user saved .
33
34 type Store struct {
35 // contains filtered or unexported fields
36 }
37 Store provides functions to interact with the underlying database .
38
39 func New ( dbFile string ) ( Store , error )
40 New returns a new Store with a database already setup .
41
42 func ( store Store ) AddPhrase ( chatID int64 , phrase , explanation string ) error
43 AddPhrase stores a new phrase .
44
45 func ( store Store ) BackupTo ( w http . Re sponse Writer )
46 BackupTo streams backup as an HTTP response .
47
48 func ( store Store ) Close () error
49 Close the underlying database connection .
50
51 func ( store Store ) DeleteChat ( chatID int64 ) error

55
 C Documentation

52 DeleteChat removes all records of a given chat .

53
54 func ( store Store ) DeletePhrases ( fn func ( int64 , Phrase ) bool ) ( int , error )
55 DeletePhrases removes all phrases fn matches .
56
57 func ( store Store ) D e l e t e S t u d y P h r a s e ( chatID int64 ) error
58 D e l e t e S t u d y P h r a s e deletes the phrase the passed user currently has to
59 study .
60
61 func ( store Store ) Ea chActi veChat ( fn func ( int64 ) ) error
62 Each Active Chat runs a function for each chat where the user has been
63 active since the last notification has been sent .
64
65 func ( store Store ) FindPhrase ( chatID int64 , fn func ( Phrase ) bool ) ( Phrase , error )
66 FindPhrase returns a phrase belonging to the passed user that matches
67 the passed function .
68
69 func ( store Store ) GetChatIDs () ([] int64 , error )
70 GetChatIDs returns chatIDs of all users .
71
72 func ( store Store ) GetMode ( chatID int64 ) ( Mode , error )
73 GetMode fetches the mode for a chat .
74
75 func ( store Store ) GetNotifyTime ( chatID int64 ) ( time . Duration , int , error )
76 GetNotifyTime gets the time until the user should be notified to study .
77 Returns the time until the next studies are ready and a count of the
78 ready studies . The returned duration is always at least d ueMinI nactiv e .
79 The count is 0 if the chat has no phrases yet .
80
81 func ( store Store ) G e t P h r a s e s A s J S O N ( chatID int64 ) ( io . Reader , error )
82 G e t P h r a s e s A s J S O N ...
83
84 func ( store Store ) GetStudy ( chatID int64 ) ( Study , error )
85 GetStudy returns the current study the user needs to do .
86
87 func ( store Store ) IsSubscribed ( chatID int64 ) ( bool , error )
88 IsSubscribed checks if a user has notifications enabled .
89
90 func ( store Store ) ScoreStudy ( chatID int64 , score int ) error
91 ScoreStudy sets the score of the current study and moves to the next
92 study .
93
94 func ( store Store ) SetActivity ( chatID int64 , t time . Time ) error
95 SetActivity sets the last time a message was sent to a user .
96
97 func ( store Store ) SetMode ( chatID int64 , mode Mode ) error
98 SetMode updates the mode for a chat .
99
100 func ( store Store ) SetRead ( chatID int64 , t time . Time ) error
101 SetRead sets the last time the user read a message .
102
103 func ( store Store ) StudyNow () error

56
 C Documentation

104 StudyNow resets all study times of all users to now .

105
106 func ( store Store ) Subscribe ( chatID int64 ) error
107 Subscribe enables notifications for a user .
108
109 func ( store Store ) Unsubscribe ( chatID int64 ) error
110 Unsubscribe disables notifications for a user .
111
112 type Study struct {
113 // Phrase is the phrase the user needs to guess .
114 Phrase string
115 // Explanation is the explanation displayed to the user .
116 Explanation string
117 // Total is the total number of studies ready , including the current one .
118 Total int
119 // Next contains the time until the next study is available ;
120 // it ’ s only set if Total is 0.
121 Next time . Duration
122 }
123 Study is a study the current study the user needs to answer .

57
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