With Google's Rich Communication Services coming to all Android-based phones in the near future, new ways to design, prototype, and test conversational interfaces are now on the horizon. With Botmock, you can get started in easily designing your RCS-based customer experiences, with easy integration of content elements that are design-accurate to the platform, to easy ways of running usability tests that can help you test the RCS formats before your actually move on to the build process and launch the entire Conversational Interface.
As with all Botmock Projects, RCS has platform-specific UI and Content Management features which allow you to quickly setup the prototypes and collaborate with a team to see exactly what a finished RCS project will look like.
To get started with an RCS Project, simply start by creating a new Project and selecting the "RCS" option from the list of platforms. After you select to create an RCS Project, you will be sent to the normal flow editor, but the major changes will show themselves within the actual content blocks that you piece together to build up a Conversational UI.
The following are the options for the Content Blocks that help build out accurate elements for RCS Projects:
Bot Says: The classic Content Block which represents text that the bot will display to communicate information to the user.
Carousel/Cards: An easy way to create a "Carousel" or just a single card of information that includes an image, title, and description.
Image: This will display an image from the bot's perspective, but can also be adjusted to be a user reply.
Location: This will trigger a "Location" button that would allow the user to share a location in the context of a real RCS project.
Suggestion Chips: These are essentially the only button options that are available specially to the RCS platform. This allows for small "chips" to be added that can help determine which way the conversation can continue to flow.
User Says: Another regular content block that will show (in RCS Style), automatically, the way it would look like if the user was to respond at a certain point in the conversational experience.
Running an RCS Project will be just about the same as running any other Flow project within Botmock, With RCS Projects, the main difference is the customized design of the "Run" tab where the user will see something that mimics the RCS platform exactly for ease of use of seeing how the Content Blocks will look within the content of a real, deployed, RCS project.
Usability Testing with RCS Projects will be almost exactly like the way it would work for other Botmock Flow Projects, regardless of platform. This will allow an easy way to send a link to an RCS Project that can be trialed and tested before being built into a full product.
You can learn more about Usability Testing here.