# Conversation design

## Chatbot

A chatbot (or *bot*) is an automated conversational agent that uses artificial intelligence to understand and respond to customers' requests in human language. It can take the form of a bot that writes to customers over chat (*chatbot*) or one that talks to them over a phone call (*voicebot*), although chatbot is the commonly accepted term for both.

<figure><img src="/files/MxiKaVR2T1rRBJFTjTGr" alt="" width="236"><figcaption><p>A retail chatbot in action.</p></figcaption></figure>

Chatbots are a great tool that let your business automate simple tasks like answering frequently asked questions, getting a customer's contact details, or redirecting them to the right support agent. So with the chatbot's help, your team can focus on the important tasks!

Chatlayer allows you to build your bot without any programming knowledge, in a user-friendly and intuitive way. You can use a template that can help you get started faster or build a bot from scratch. Either way, setting up a basic chatbot will take just a few minutes.

## Conversation design

Designing the way a chatbot converses is called conversation design. It's a combination of technology, psychology, and language that takes into consideration both human and technological limitations and possibilities to create the most intuitive conversational user experience possible.

<figure><img src="/files/y37UVrMJ7f7sNAkqNF9A" alt="" width="563"><figcaption><p>Example of a conversation design flowchart.</p></figcaption></figure>

In other words, conversation design is about creating conversations between human and machine that feel as natural as possible.

Designing a chatbot is a step-by-step workflow that conversation designers iterate on.

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[Plan your bot](/buildabot/conversation-design/getting-started.md)
{% endcontent-ref %}

{% content-ref url="/pages/RqpmkVvQSyeLg3uL4FF3" %}
[Conversation design workflow](/buildabot/conversation-design/conversation-design-workflow.md)
{% endcontent-ref %}

{% content-ref url="/pages/-MRJsYZcUG8JCkxBzP3r" %}
[Broken mention](broken://pages/-MRJsYZcUG8JCkxBzP3r)
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