[CAIA Intake] <Rx Chat Skill>: <Content Review for Live Chat Escalation>

[dalelarue]

Content, accessibility, information architecture (CAIA) new initiative collaboration request

Use this ticket to request collaboration on a new initiative with the sitewide content, accessibility, and information architecture (CAIA) shared services team. Feel free to delete instructions and unselected options from the ticket to make it easier to scan.

Your team

• *Product name:VA Chatbot*
• *Team nameRx Chat Skill (RAIN/Thoughtworks)*:
• *OCTO product owner:Nathalie Rayter*
• *Product manager:Vrushali Patil (Thoughtworks), Dale LaRue (RAIN/IronBow)*
• *Designer(s):N/A*
• *Slack channel:va-chatbot-platform*
• *Dedicated content writer on your team (if you have one):N/A*
• *Dedicated a11y specialist on your team (if you have one):N/A*

Your CAIA team:

Filled out by CAIA

• IA:
• Content:
• Accessibility:

Your Initiative

Which of these descriptions best fits the work we’ll partner on?

Select all that apply.

• [ ] Digitizing a new form
• [ ] Creating a new digital tool
• [ ] Updating an existing form or tool
• [ ] Translating a form or tool into Spanish
• [ ] Adding new unauthenticated content to VA.gov
• [ ] Updating existing unauthenticated content on VA.gov
• [X] Something else: updating authenticated content in the bot in the context of escalating a veteran to a live chat service from a prescription refill user experience

What's the nature of your initiative and desired outcomes?

`we are aiming to improve on action of sending Veterans to the live chat service through chatbot with an updated button UI as a clearer call to action. We have multiple contextual scenarios to consider when the live chat service both is and is not available; We're looking for content guidance on what has been shared as "standard to include" from working with the MHV team, while considering the impact of this content on the specific product goal of directing a Veteran to the live chat service.

Supporting artifacts

Provide links to any supporting artifacts that can help us better understand your initiative and begin collaboration. Include artifacts like your product outline, user flows, mockups and prototypes, or any draft content. FOR FIGMA/MURAL: please tell us which screens/board/section to look at so we don't leave comments on old stuff.

• https://dvagov.sharepoint.com/:x:/r/sites/OfficeofConnectedCareContractedSupport/_layouts/15/Doc.aspx?sourcedoc=%7B327AE632-B331-49AE-97E2-729A52F55E41%7D&file=VHCEscalation_CopyDocument_2.1.0_Release.xlsx&action=default&mobileredirect=true
• https://dvagov.sharepoint.com/:p:/r/sites/OfficeofConnectedCareContractedSupport/Shared%20Documents/VHA%20Health%20Assistant%20(Voice-Chat%20Bot)/[v2_VHCEscalation_ContentReview_2.1.pptx]?d=wed4a9b4948284545a8309e793ddb2a67&csf=1&web=1&e=0y8OaV

Collaboration timeframe

Note: We work on nearly every OCTO product and manage all unauthenticated content on VA.gov, so we will need to prioritize intake requests based on overall workload and VA and OCTO priorities.

Is this work tied to a Congressional mandate, change in law or policy, or upcoming event with a specific deadline?

• [ ] Yes
• [X] No
• [ ] I’m not sure

Where are you at in your timeline?

Tell us briefly about what you're working on now (such as initial discovery, wireframing, or usability research planning) and add any known dates for upcoming milestones or deadlines.

We're at the beginning of sprint 2 of 4 sprints. we are hoping to have content alignment by the end of the third sprint at the latest.; approx. 3-4 weeks from now

Will you release this new product incrementally (for example, release to 25% of users to start)?

• [ ] Yes
• [X] No

Collaboration cycle

Which phases of the collaboration cycle have you completed?

Select all that apply.

• [ ] Design intent
• [ ] Midpoint review
• [ ] Staging
• [X] None. This initiative isn’t going through the collaboration cycle.

Next steps

• [ ] Review the remaining next steps in the VFS team tasks section here.
• [ ] If you also need engineering support from the public websites team, fill out their intake request form as well: Open a public websites intake request
• [ ] If you're requesting a page/URL redirect, a URL change, or a vanity URL, submit an additional request for this work: Open a redirect, URL change, or vanity URL request
• [ ] If you're creating an experimental design, also contact the design system team: Read more about experimental designs
  Suggest an addition or update to the design system team
• [ ] If you're requesting a11y support for usability research, submit a research support request next: Open an a11y research support request
• [X] If you are requesting content support, please share your content source of truth (preferably as a SharePoint document).

[dalelarue]

@nathalierayter @rmtuckerphx @marcher357 @patilvrushali

[dalelarue]

Hi @laurwill - I checked the board now that I see this in refinement and saw this label means "waiting for follow up from OCTO or the product team." Wanted to check what was still needed from our end? Thanks!

cc: @nathalierayter @patilvrushali

[laurwill]

Hey @dalelarue , thanks for chatting timing for this, just confirming that we'll provide content support in the Sharepoint docs by the end of next week, November 8. I'll update here if we have questions!

[laurwill]

Hi @dalelarue , I started reviewing and have a few questions for you:

• The column "MHV review" looks like content I may have written or reviewed for your team previously — can you confirm where that content came from?
• The new versions remove all the paragraph breaks, bolding, and other formatting that helps make longer content more scannable. Is that due to limitations in the chatbot itself? Or can we retain paragraph breaks and other formatting in these pre-written responses?
• The new versions that promote live chat also remove phone options in some cases. I'm not sure we want to make live chat the only option for things that involve medical information, because some people may not want to use online chat for that. Is there a reason we can't offer alternatives in the live chat versions?
• I saw a few places where I might suggest altering the button text/links — is that in scope here, and are there any rules about the button text I should know if I do suggest that?

Thank you!

[dalelarue]

Hi @laurwill

• yes this was content first shared with us by Katilin Fink on the MHV design team during a previous release. We had previously reached consensus from a group of stakeholders in Pharmacy program management on the copy in column C, related to v2.0.1 release, and the addition of different options presented hurdles when we had other deadlines driving a release of the service. So we put it in the backlog to be addressed during this release, that coincides with the addition of the button CTA element.

• we had previously investigated the treatment of the bold text and spacing, but ran into issues with it being supported by the web client. We tested it effectively in the MSFT Bot emulator (dev tool) but it did not render to spec when we deployed to the dev environment for chatbot. Paired with the decision to forgo the "MHV review" text for now, it was not debugged further. We are certainly open to some level of treatment for improved readability, but we do have to contend with treatment of our text for screen readers, as well as a text-to-speech (TTS) component for the voice-led interaction design. Spacing wasn't the issue, so much as the bolded text, but we'd be happy to explore this again and come to a more pointed resolution.

• As a part of the chatbot product goals, we have KPIs surrounding escalation to live chat as a hypothesis to improve on call volume/hold times, so when a plan is available we've designed to support that journey.

• the button text/links in play are fair game as these were originally provided to us. So open to the recommendations on what replacements you might have. Some possible considerations: • the chatbot window is only so big, so large amounts of text will be challenging for Veterans to consume without having to scroll and manage what they can see at one time. Already, the help intent response is quite large. Any ideas you have to remaing 'standard' with VA.gov but also tailored to the chat/conversational modality is welcomed. (example photo below) • the button has a character count maximum of 19 characters (including spaces)

[laurwill]

Hi @dalelarue thanks for these answers!

• I'll add spacing to my suggested versions, but avoid bolding — hopefully that can help make the content more scannable without causing problems
• For the KPI to drive people to live chat, I think it makes sense to list the chat option first. But I don't think we should only list the chat option — there are several reasons people may not want to use the live chat, and it's important to provide other options for these health care tasks. I'll suggest versions that prioritize live chat, but still make clear you can call, etc.
• I was trying out some of the intents in the live bot to see how the conversation flows currently, and I noticed that if you type these intents outside of the Rx microskill, the bot doesn't prompt you to sign in to manage prescriptions. It just says it can't answer. Is that a known issue you're tracking on?

[laurwill]

Hi again @dalelarue , I have a few more questions for you before I wrap up my suggestions:

• Is health chat available 24/7? Or is that what the sheet means by "plan available"—that health chat is available at that time?
• Are the links to secure messaging and medications going to the new tools on VA.gov, or the old tools on the MHV website?
• Does the button always have to be the last part of the answer? Or can you have copy, button, then more copy?

Also noting we have a direct link to the facility locator that prefills the health selection that you could use in the buttons: https://www.va.gov/find-locations/?page=1&facilityType=health

[dalelarue]

Hi @laurwill sorry for the delay!

• Health chat is available to some VISNs at 24/7, but not all. so if a Veteran belongs to a VISN that has 24/7 support, they will get redirected. If not, they won't be made aware of the possibility.
• They should be going to the new tools
• we could explore that, I believe it would require us breaking up the text into separate responses vs. all contained in one. I could review this level of effort with my team.
• we will definitely use that link if th recommendation is to continue with a "find location" option.

Thanks Laura!

[dalelarue]

@laurwill I also just noticed there were two messages yesterday - in regards to your commentsin the first one:

• we actually spent some time looking at bolding, and we were able to debug this. So we will be happy to move forward with adding bold text where appropriate.
• clear on the additional calls to action. by moving the button ahead of those messages I think is a nice compromise considering your direction on alternate methods to contact.
• the functionality exists in the rx microskill, so to call that function I think we need to work with the chatbot team to update the utterances/phrases that can trigger the skill.

[laurwill]

Hi @dalelarue , Thanks for all these responses! My suggestions are in the Excel sheet. I added a notes column to explain some of what I'm suggesting, but here are some high-level notes:

• I think all the CTAs in these intent answers should be links, not buttons. They don't take an action directly in the chatbot, they navigate out of the chatbot to a different location.
• Making these all links actually lowers the LOE here, I think — we can serve a single piece of copy (or several pieces of copy one after the other, depending on how you usually do this), with spacing and bolding to make the different options more scannable.
• I think the "help" and "contact pharmacist" intents are so similar that we'd probably want to serve the same answers for all of those intent phrases.

Let me know what you think! Happy to chat more.