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No, I mean, like a copilot style AI assistant, the user can chat with to ask what they want to do, and either the assistant can operate and navigate the UI to t

No, I mean, like a copilot style AI assistant, the user can chat with to ask what they want to do, and either the assistant can operate and navigate the UI to the right place, or perhaps even shortcut the steps for the user by asking for questions to satisfy inputs for the thing they are trying to accomplish. An example: - user intent is to update an attribute for a component part number A21445 - user can click a chat bubble icon in lower right and chat to the assistant - user describes their intent - "help me update the description for part number A21445 - system replies by informing the user it will open the right screen, opening a part/component editing UI, with the right part loaded, with the cursor positioned in the description field, and the assistant stays open for further assistance; or; - system replies that it found the part and can update the description, shows the current description for the user, asks "what description do you want?" - user enters updated description - system confirms the change is correct - user confirms the change is correct - part/component description is updated without even opening the UI FWIW, it's great that you have cmd-K and also I've seen those kind of search boxes get more smarts like being able to type "part:A21445" to go directly to a specific UI. I just suggested the above as we learned some interesting user experiences became possible when our AI assistant had the ability to control our UI directly on behalf of a specific user. An example in the app I worked in (a web based data pipeline tool): - "Hey assistant, can you help me add some SQL transformation logic to dataflow ABC, to process the customer data?" - system uses metadata and knowledge of the UI to open the right dataflow, select the right type of UI to open to enable the user to add a SQL query in the right place, maybe even autogenerate the initial SQL query - this all from the main home page of the app, from a side panel chat assistant. - net result feels like talking to the assistant to operate the app, almost no clicks required. I hope that makes sense.

barbinbrad 1y ago
really appreciate you taking the time to write this! we've started trying to work through adding agents like this: https://x.com/barbinbrad/status/1903047303180464586 https://x.com/barbinbrad/status/1903047303180464586 the trouble is that there are 1000s of possible mutations -- and the quality of an agent tends to diminsh with the amount of "tools" you give it. i need to figure out the right abstraction for this.
- jazzyjackson 1y ago
  I pray you focus on your core product and don’t fall into an agentification rabbit hole. If you do want everything to be automatable take a page from Blender and give every action a key binding plus a Python method, so Python scripts can take the same actions a human would, but as function calls instead of clicks. Then maybe maybe maybe you can have a text field that allows natural language to transform to an action, but please god stay away from chat interfaces. Rhino CAD is another interesting interface to look at, there’s a million buttons and menus but there’s also a text field at the top of the viewport where you can just type a command if you already know the name instead of rummaging through submenus. Kind of a CLI within the GUI.
  - sixdimensional 1y ago
    I somewhat agree with you, especially that one could identify a common abstraction that later an LLM could piggyback on top of. Genuine question though - have you implemented an AI assistant/chat interface recently using LLMs on top of a UI? I agree it can be a rabbit hole, but I just got through doing it on an app and there were definitely some things it really made way simpler and some complex scenarios that I'm not sure could have been done any more simply.
    - jazzyjackson 1y ago
      I built a chat interface in 2017 (this was with chatscript dialog trees with hole-filling and semantic search) that was ostensibly to prevent our data scientists from redundant work, ie, before they spent all day writing a SQL script, describe the job of the script and see if one already exists. The chatbot would then ask for the parameters required for a script, run the job, and then present a CSV of the returned data. As we collected user feedback and refined the UX, we got closer and closer to an option tree that could be better represented by a drop down menu. It was kind of depressing, but I learned that the actual job of that R & D wasn't to come up with a superintelligent chatbot that replaced data scientists, it was to come up with the infrastructure that would allow data scientists to put their python scripts in a common repository to allow re-use without re-installing locally and screwing around with pyenvs. Anyway, I'm also traumatized by my involvement with a YC startup that actually had a very good (if ENRONish) product around peer to peer energy futures trading that completely fell apart when investors demanded they make it "AI"
kennywinker 1y ago
This is a power-user’s nightmare. Instead of arranging things in a logical hierarchy, and enabling quick navigation thru keystrokes - just toss out making the ui make sense because the chatbot can solve all. Your job is to make a good product. AI-as-interface is just slapping a layer of randomized language parsing in between the user and bad ui. I’m not actually saying no chatbots. What I am saying is using a chatbot to solve a usability problem is a massive middle finger to anyone who might have to use your product for 8 hours a day. Make it good, then make it idiot-proof. Don’t make it for idiots only.
- 1899-12-30 1y ago
  Chatbots would be great for discoverability, especially if you have a ton of docs that nobody seems to read.
  - kennywinker 1y ago
    Ai slop to navigate the ai slop docs? Ai seven layer dip.
- sixdimensional 1y ago
  I agree with you. I used to work in green screen text based UIs from the 80s (TUI). Power users didn't need search or anything else - they memorized the keystrokes to navigate the text UI and could just type key combinations to blaze through the UI faster than it could render on the screen. I've never really seen anyone able to replicate that UI in a browser based or GUI desktop app to be honest. Power users are a different use case, although the end goal is to remove the need for clicks. I don't believe chatbots/AI assistants are a panacea, definitely encourage the architects of this new ERP platform to weigh the pros and cons. That said, two jobs back I worked for a major manufacturing company that used the old GUI destop based Oracle EBS ERP. To automate repetitive workflows they were trying to implement UIPath (RPA automation - it drives the UI for the user) on top of the GUI. This is what lead me to believe that if the ERP application's functionality is discoverable by an AI assistant, it can be used to automate or navigate on behalf of the user, or as part of complex workflows. That can be done later after the basics are addressed - my only advice would be to just consider it sooner, even if you don't build it first. It's a little easier to think of how one might simplify the workflows and design for automation into the core of the product, via the UI, APIs, etc earlier than later. But in general - focus on the user's needs first and different roles/personas - just don't completely ignore new types of automation workflow opportunities (i.e. AI assistants/chatbots). My opinion only.

barbinbrad 1y ago

really appreciate you taking the time to write this! we've started trying to work through adding agents like this: https://x.com/barbinbrad/status/1903047303180464586 https://x.com/barbinbrad/status/1903047303180464586 the trouble is that there are 1000s of possible mutations -- and the quality of an agent tends to diminsh with the amount of "tools" you give it. i need to figure out the right abstraction for this.

jazzyjackson 1y ago
I pray you focus on your core product and don’t fall into an agentification rabbit hole. If you do want everything to be automatable take a page from Blender and give every action a key binding plus a Python method, so Python scripts can take the same actions a human would, but as function calls instead of clicks. Then maybe maybe maybe you can have a text field that allows natural language to transform to an action, but please god stay away from chat interfaces. Rhino CAD is another interesting interface to look at, there’s a million buttons and menus but there’s also a text field at the top of the viewport where you can just type a command if you already know the name instead of rummaging through submenus. Kind of a CLI within the GUI.
- sixdimensional 1y ago
  I somewhat agree with you, especially that one could identify a common abstraction that later an LLM could piggyback on top of. Genuine question though - have you implemented an AI assistant/chat interface recently using LLMs on top of a UI? I agree it can be a rabbit hole, but I just got through doing it on an app and there were definitely some things it really made way simpler and some complex scenarios that I'm not sure could have been done any more simply.
  - jazzyjackson 1y ago
    I built a chat interface in 2017 (this was with chatscript dialog trees with hole-filling and semantic search) that was ostensibly to prevent our data scientists from redundant work, ie, before they spent all day writing a SQL script, describe the job of the script and see if one already exists. The chatbot would then ask for the parameters required for a script, run the job, and then present a CSV of the returned data. As we collected user feedback and refined the UX, we got closer and closer to an option tree that could be better represented by a drop down menu. It was kind of depressing, but I learned that the actual job of that R & D wasn't to come up with a superintelligent chatbot that replaced data scientists, it was to come up with the infrastructure that would allow data scientists to put their python scripts in a common repository to allow re-use without re-installing locally and screwing around with pyenvs. Anyway, I'm also traumatized by my involvement with a YC startup that actually had a very good (if ENRONish) product around peer to peer energy futures trading that completely fell apart when investors demanded they make it "AI"

kennywinker 1y ago

This is a power-user’s nightmare. Instead of arranging things in a logical hierarchy, and enabling quick navigation thru keystrokes - just toss out making the ui make sense because the chatbot can solve all. Your job is to make a good product. AI-as-interface is just slapping a layer of randomized language parsing in between the user and bad ui. I’m not actually saying no chatbots. What I am saying is using a chatbot to solve a usability problem is a massive middle finger to anyone who might have to use your product for 8 hours a day. Make it good, then make it idiot-proof. Don’t make it for idiots only.

1899-12-30 1y ago
Chatbots would be great for discoverability, especially if you have a ton of docs that nobody seems to read.
- kennywinker 1y ago
  Ai slop to navigate the ai slop docs? Ai seven layer dip.
sixdimensional 1y ago
I agree with you. I used to work in green screen text based UIs from the 80s (TUI). Power users didn't need search or anything else - they memorized the keystrokes to navigate the text UI and could just type key combinations to blaze through the UI faster than it could render on the screen. I've never really seen anyone able to replicate that UI in a browser based or GUI desktop app to be honest. Power users are a different use case, although the end goal is to remove the need for clicks. I don't believe chatbots/AI assistants are a panacea, definitely encourage the architects of this new ERP platform to weigh the pros and cons. That said, two jobs back I worked for a major manufacturing company that used the old GUI destop based Oracle EBS ERP. To automate repetitive workflows they were trying to implement UIPath (RPA automation - it drives the UI for the user) on top of the GUI. This is what lead me to believe that if the ERP application's functionality is discoverable by an AI assistant, it can be used to automate or navigate on behalf of the user, or as part of complex workflows. That can be done later after the basics are addressed - my only advice would be to just consider it sooner, even if you don't build it first. It's a little easier to think of how one might simplify the workflows and design for automation into the core of the product, via the UI, APIs, etc earlier than later. But in general - focus on the user's needs first and different roles/personas - just don't completely ignore new types of automation workflow opportunities (i.e. AI assistants/chatbots). My opinion only.