Design a Chatbot Framework

Requirements Definition

Functional Requirements

• Multi-Channel Support: The chatbot framework should support integration with web applications, mobile apps, and at least one major messaging platform (e.g., Slack or Facebook Messenger).
• Natural Language Understanding (NLU): The system must be able to detect user intent and extract key entities from user messages.
• Dialogue Management: The chatbot should manage multi-turn conversations, maintain session context, and generate appropriate responses.
• Backend Integration: The framework should allow integration with external APIs or databases to fetch or update information as needed.
• Personalization: The chatbot should provide responses tailored to individual users by utilizing session or user profile data.
• Error Handling: The system must detect when it cannot understand a user input and provide fallback responses or clarification prompts.

Non-Functional Requirements

• Scalability: The framework should handle a moderate number of concurrent users and be easy to scale horizontally.
• Security: User data must be handled securely, following best practices for data privacy and protection.
• Low Latency: The chatbot should respond to user inputs within a reasonable time frame (e.g., under 1 second for most interactions).
• Maintainability: The system should be modular and easy to update or extend with new features or integrations.
• Monitoring and Analytics: Basic metrics such as conversation success rate and user engagement should be tracked for monitoring and improvement.