Dialogflow

Ingredient (type) and cuisine entities

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Prolog and Patterns

We need to refine our logic now for retrieving only those recipes that satisfy specific filters. We already introduced a recipeFiltered/3 predicate for Capability 2: Request a Recommendation but there it did not have to do any serious work yet. We only introduced the base case without any filters (an empty list of filters) but now need to deal with the case where we have some filters that a user provided. The basic idea to define a recursive clause for recipeFiltered/3 is simple: apply the first filter in the list to the recipes and recursively filter the remaining recipes using the remaining filters. We provide you below with the recursive clause that you should add below the base clause that we added earlier in the recipe_selection.pl file:

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Let’s inspect this interaction in more detail and analyse how it is organized. In Moore and Arar’s taxonomy, the parts of the dialog in this example where the user adds a feature request in the second and fourth move can be classified as Pattern A2.1: Open Request. We will use the a21featureRequest label for this pattern and define different variants of it below. The agent initiates with an inquiry about what the user is looking for. This move is part of the a50recipeSelect pattern, a top level pattern that we added to the agent’s agenda. We previously defined variants for that pattern for Capability 2: Request a Recommendation and Capability 3: Select Recipes by Name. The user responds by informing the agent that they are interested in a particular cuisine (JapanJapanese). This is a feature request that we want the agent to manage by means of a new a21featureRequest pattern. The idea is that this pattern is inserted while the user and agent are still performing the top level a50recipeSelect pattern. The a21featureRequest pattern is inserted as a subdialog, which we indicated in the example above by adding indentation. The response of the agent is an acknowledgement move combined with a renewal of the question whether the user wants to add any other feature. We’ll take it that this move is also part of the a21featureRequest pattern and ends this pattern. The fourth user move (a second feature request for the an ingredient type pasta) and the fifth agent move repeats the same a21featureRequest pattern. The interaction concludes with a move of the user mentioning a specific recipe title (Curry noodle soupTeriyaki salmon). That last move and the agent move following it are both part of the a50recipeSelect pattern we specified for Capability 3: Select Recipes by Name. That pattern added the a50recipeConfirm pattern into the current session of the agent. This pattern asks the user to check the recipe (while showing all relevant details). You still need to add this pattern to implement the capability we are working on right now below.

From a visual (webpage) point of view, we want to inform the user about the progress that is made. The main difference that we think is relevant here is how many recipes are still remaining. That is, how many recipes satisfy all of the user’s requests. The idea here is that it is not useful to show titles and pictures of a large number of recipes (there would be too many for the user to look at) but to show titles and pictures when the number of remaining recipes has reduced to a sufficiently small number (as a design choice, we have chosen <16 here). Assuming that there are fewer than 16 recipes left that are Japanese and use pastasalmon, at the sixth move in the example above, the user can have a look at the displayed recipe titles that are still left and make a choice. That should also clarify how at that move the user can mention a specific recipe title (they see the titles that are left). After selecting a recipe, the agent acknowledges the choice and asks the user to confirm they would like to cook the recipe. At this stage, the conversational context is the a50recipeConfirm pattern and the agent should display all relevant details such as instructions and ingredients that help a user make this decision on the corresponding page.

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1.  A variant for when a user requests a feature while already checking a recipe and the context is a50recipeConfirm. That is, the user already has made a choice (e.g., Curry noodle soupTeriyaki salmon), is looking at the recipe details for this choice , but still adds a feature request. We assume that the user is still undecided if they make such a move, and will want to move the conversation back to the a50recipeSelect pattern stage by inserting that pattern back into the session at the end of the pattern a21featureRequest.

2. A variant for when a user requests a feature while the context still is selecting a recipe (a50recipeSelect).

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In total, you should be implemented four variants of a21featureRequest pattern for the different conditions: 2 main variants x 2 cases.

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For the featureRemovalRequest intent, you should add a simple text/2 fact. Use as response text, for example, "Can you have a look again and remove one of your recipe requirements?".

Visuals

We want to differentiate what we show to a user depending on the number of recipes that still meet the user’s requests. The basic idea is that we should not show a large number of recipes to a user but we can show recipe details when the number of remaining recipes becomes sufficiently small (we chose <16, see also above). As a consequence, we want to create two different versions of the a50recipeSelect page that we created for Capability 2: Request a Recommendation: one that just shows the feature requests made when there are more than 15 recipes that meet these requests, and another for when there are less that 16 which shows the recipe details (titles and pictures) for all of the remaining recipes.

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Your final page should look something like this (just an example, you should easily be able to easily improve!).

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Test it Out

Test it out by Run your Conversational Agent. Try different scenarios where you filter on ingredients, ingredient types, and/or cuisine. For example, try adding requests for the following ingredients one by one in order: ginger, salt, sugar, rice. You should end up with exactly 2 recipes left.

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