Tutorial
A series of videos to get you up and running on DialogForm.
DialogForm has a number of building blocks. These building blocks are best learned in the context of creating and sharing an actual flow. We have created a tutorial in the form of a series of videos which does just this.
The list of videos is below. We recommend watching the videos in order, as each video builds on previous ones. However, we do provide a description of what is shown in each video so that you can easily find and refer to any specific feature/functionality at any time.
You might like to open https://admin.dialogform.in in a separate tab in your browser, and try stuff out yourself as you watch the videos.
IMPORTANT, READ FIRST
In the tutorial videos, we often hover over a particular piece of information to reveal certain actions that can be carried out on that information.
#1 Creating a flow
Each unit of learning content you will create in DialogForm is called a flow. You can design a flow to be a complete lesson, a part of a lesson, a set of questions to be answered by the user, or even just a single question - it's up to you.
This video shows you how to create a new flow and give it a name.
If you are on the Sequences tab instead of the Flows tab, then there is a slight deviation from the video. You need to click on the "New Sequence" button, followed by the "Add Flow" button.
In this case, you will end up creating a flow sequence with one flow. A sequence is simply a collection of flows that the user interacts with in order.
#2 Creating your first prompt
A flow is made up of prompts. A prompt is a message from the chatbot to the user. Together with the message, a prompt also contains possible answers, if any, to expect from the user in response to the message. For each answer, the prompt also specifies which next prompt to show. This is how a chat is able to move forward from one prompt to the next.
This video shows you how to create a prompt with multiple choice answers. Multiple choice answers are likely the most common form of answering you will use with DialogForm, although we do support other types of answers too.
#3 Assigning scores to answers
This video shows you how to assign a score to any answer in a prompt. As the chat progresses, individual answer scores get aggregated. At any point of time, the current aggregate score is shown at the top of the chat window. DialogForm allows you to select from several scoring strategies at the answer level and at the prompt level, that let you customize how scores are aggregated. Scoring strategies are explained in later videos.
#4 Branching and looping based on user answers, and an introduction to scoring strategies
For each answer in a prompt, you can specify which next prompt to display. This allows you to branch out based on user answers. For example, the chat could go down some path if the user answered correctly, and down another path if they answered incorrectly. In fact, if they answered incorrectly you could even loop back and have them attempt the same prompt again.
This video shows you how to create branches and loops. It also introduces a scoring strategy that penalizes the user for requiring more than one try to arrive at the correct answer, and another strategy that doesn't.
#5 Longer loops, and an introduction to video-based prompts
The last video showed how to loop back and get the user to re-answer a prompt if they gave the incorrect answer. Instead of immediately looping back though, it would be nice if we could first provide a hint, or even handhold the student step-by-step to arrive at the correct answer. This is a powerful feature in DialogForm. This video shows how to set up longer loops that can do just this.
Also, so far we have been simply using text messages in our prompts. However, prompts actually support much richer messages - such as bold and italic text, headings, images, lists and videos. This video introduces video messages.
#6 Quick response based branching and looping, and an introduction to rich messages
Quick responses provide a concise way to add branching and looping, with some limitations and some advantages over the branching and looping methods shown in the previous videos. This video shows you how to set up branching and looping with quick responses.
Also, this video introduces rich Markdown-based messages that allow you to add bold and italic text, headings, images, lists and hyperlinks. See here for help on how to write Markdown. Ignore the section on images, since DialogForm gives you a convenient point-and-click method to upload and insert images.
#7 "Interactive" multi-select questions, and different ways of displaying choices
So far we have worked with multiple choice questions with a single correct answer. In contrast, a multi-select question is one where the user can select more than one correct answer from a list of answer choices. In traditional content creation tools, for such questions, you may have experienced that the user is asked to select all the choices that they wish to in one go. However, a much more engaging and interactive way to do this would be to ask the user to choose one by one, giving them helpful feedback along the way. This is what we mean by "interactive" multi-select.
This video shows how to create an interactive multi-select question using the quick responses feature introduced in the last video, and also highlights another scoring strategy that makes such a question possible.
#8 "Traditional" multi-select questions
The last video showed how to create an "interactive" multi-select question. However, DialogForm does offer the more traditional multi-select construct too. This video shows how to create a simple, or traditional, multi-select question.
#9 Free-form user answers (as opposed to choice-based answers)
In all the previous videos, we have worked with choice-based answers. However, sometimes you may want the user to answer whatever they wish. This video shows how to accept any answer from the user. Note that even with such "free-form" answers, branching and looping is still possible.
#10 Accepting uploads from the user, viewing user chat histories, and an introduction to manual scoring
Sometimes, you may wish to accept handwritten answers from the user. DialogForm allows you to do so in the form of image uploads. A common scenario is to accept some handwritten "submission" from a user, and to grade that submission. Normally, when you assign a score to an answer, DialogForm automatically awards the score to the user when they select that answer. However, you can instead set it up so that you can assign a score manually to any answer, once you have had a chance to see and analyze the answer.
This video shows you how to set this all up, and also shows you how to view user chat histories in order to see their submissions and manually assign scores.
#11 Rewriting chat history (i.e. letting users change previously given answers), and an introduction to variables
Sometimes it is useful to let the user change some previously given answer. For example, at some point in the chat you may ask them for their name or email address. At some later point in time, if they wish to go back and change it (maybe because they made a typo and didn't realize it until later), then they should be able to do so. This video shows you how to enable this.
Note that whenever possible, DialogForm lets the user change their answer without disturbing the subsequent chat history. However, if the change in answer results in a different branch being taken, the subsequent history is lost. The user is always warned and asked for confirmation before making a "destructive" change.
Also, this video introduces the concept of variables. Through the use of variables, you can interpolate any answer given previously into the message of a later prompt. For example, once you ask a user for their name, you can then address them by name.
#12 Sharing and embedding, and flow publishing and versioning
This video shows you how to share DialogForm content with users. In order to share with users, a flow first needs to be published. Each time it is published, a new version is created. DialogForm allows you to "bring back" any earlier version should you wish to.
If you are planning to share your DialogForm content via Thinkific, please see this page.
Last updated
