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A conversational agent should be able to handle dialog moves of users that do not necessarily fit into the currently active pattern. Such moves are “unexpected” in the sense that they do not fit into a conversational pattern, but should be expected as users will almost always slightly deviate from a rigidly framed pattern. Typical examples are expressions of appreciation and requests for information about how the agent can assist a user (a capability check). A second type of unexpected move is not due to user behavior but due to failures of speech recognition. Dialogflow will match with a so-called default fallback intent in cases where it is unable to recognize what a user says as and cannot classify it as one of the (other) intents of the agent. There is another case that we will look into too where what a user says does not seem to fit into the conversational context. Again, we can capture the “unexpected” in patterns, which will enable the conversational agent to handle them:
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Agent Capability 5: Filter Recipes by Ingredients and Cuisine
Summary Description
A: What recipe would you like to cook?
U: I'd like to make a recipe with ____ *.
A: All the recipes left include ____ *. Do you want to add another preference?
* insert name of an ingredient (type) or cuisine here
Implementation Tasks Overview
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Add ingredient (type) and cuisine entities and an intent for filtering recipes. |
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| panelIconId | 1f4a1 |
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| bgColor | #E6FCFF |
Implementing this capability will involve implementing some of the conversational and reasoning competences that a conversational recipe recommendation agent should have. It will enable users to request recipes which use specific ingredient (types) or ask for recipes from a specific cuisine. This one of the capabilities that requires quite a big amount of work. Some of the bigger challenges will be to make Dialogflow understand ingredients (at least those that are in our database; and cuisines, for that matter, but those are fewer), to implement the logic to filter the recipe database with the feature requests of a user, and to present those in a nice way to the user on a webpage.
Summary Description
A: What recipe would you like to cook?
U: I'd like to make a recipe with ____ *.
A: All the recipes left include ____ *. Do you want to add another preference?
* insert name of an ingredient (type) or cuisine here
Implementation Tasks Overview
| Panel | ||||||||
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Add ingredient (type) and cuisine entities and an intent for filtering recipes. |
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Implement feature request patterns and responses, and Prolog rules for filtering recipes. |
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Agent Capability 6: Filter Recipes on Number of Ingredients
Summary Description
A: What recipe would you like to cook?
U: I'd like to make a recipe with ____ * ingredients.
A: Here is a list of recipes that fit your preferences.
* insert a number This capability will extend the capabilities of the agent to handle feature requests from users for limiting the number of ingredients used in a recipe, the number of recipe instruction steps, and the duration, and meeting a specific number of servings that can be cooked with a recipe. The recipe confirmation page should also be extended to show some of these details, including the ingredients, recipe instructions, servings and duration.
A: What recipe would you like to cook?
U: I'd like to make a recipe with ____ * ingredients.
A: Here is a list of recipes that fit your preferences.
* insert a number here
Implementation Tasks Overview
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Extend the intent for filtering recipes . | ||||||||
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| panelIconId | with feature requests for number of ingredients and recipe instruction steps, duration, and number of servings. |
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Implement additional rules for filtering recipes and associated helper predicates. |
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Agent Capability 7: Filter Recipes by Dietary Restrictions
Summary Description
A: What recipe would you like to cook?
U: I'd like to make a ____ * recipe.
A: Here is a list of recipes that fit your preferences.
* insert a recipe feature We continue to extend the capabilities of the agent to handle user requests. The focus will be to enable a user to ask for recipes that meet dietary restrictions. This will also involve extending the logic of reasoning about ingredients. The main challenge will be to come up with an efficient approach to define this logic.
A: What recipe would you like to cook?
U: I'd like to make a ____ * recipe.
A: Here is a list of recipes that fit your preferences.
* insert a recipe feature such as vegan, for example, here
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Agent Capability 8: Filter Recipes by Excluding Features
Summary Description
A: What recipe would you like to cook?
U: I want a recipe without ____ *.
A: Here is a list of recipes that fit your preferences.
* insert an ingredient such as salt here
Implementation Tasks Overview
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Extend the intent for filtering recipes with phrases that exclude ingredients. |
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Implement additional helper predicates for filtering recipes. |
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Instructions
Capability 8: Filter by Excluding Features
Agent Capability 9: Confirm the Chosen Recipe
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The last extension to increase the capabilities of our agent will look into feature requests that exclude aspects of a recipe. There are many examples of this, but we will focus on user requests that ask for excluding an ingredient (type), for recipes that are not from a particular cuisine (e.g., not from Asia), or do not have a specific dietary restriction (e.g., are not vegan). You are, of course, invited to extend the agent with other similar capabilities to exclude aspects of a recipe.
A: What recipe would you like to cook?
U: I want a recipe without ____ *.
A: Here is a list of recipes that fit your preferences.
* insert an ingredient such as salt here
Implementation Tasks Overview
| Panel | ||||||||
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Extend the intent for filtering recipes with phrases that exclude ingredients. |
| Panel | ||||||||
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Implement additional helper predicates for filtering recipes. |
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Instructions
Capability 8: Filter by Excluding Features
Agent Capability 9: Confirm the Chosen Recipe
Summary Description
When users have finished their search for a nice recipe to cook, their choice should be displayed (which we already implemented for Capability 5: Filter Recipes by Ingredients and Cuisine) and they should be asked to check the details to confirm the recipe is indeed what they would like to cook. Of course, we need to take at least two scenarios into account: (1) a user confirms they are happy with the recipe, or (2) they indicate it is after all not quite what they were looking for. If all is fine and well, the agent should close the conversation by saying farewell. Otherwise, the conversation should move back to the recipe selection stage. The following conversational pattern needs to be implemented:
A: Can you confirm ___* is the recipe you would like to cook?
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