Designing with words: Creating conversational experiences
OK Google, make my UX Australia presentation… (“Showing results for mix-up Australia”)
Alexa, make my UX Australia presentation… (“Do you want to visit Australia?”)
Siri, tell Google or Alexa to make my UX Australia presentation… (“That may be beyond my abilities at the moment”)
Fine – I’ll do it the old-fashioned way.
For thirteen years, Boomworks has been focused on designing and delivering amazing digital experiences. As a user-centred design practice, if people move to a new device or platform we have to understand how they are using it to achieve their everyday goals.
For the last eight months Boomworks has been developing their intelligent conversational platform and have figured out how to re-tool our own design thinking process to approach experiences that exist entirely in text and by extension, voice.
A conversational interface enables a person to interact with a computer using natural language, either via text or voice. Thanks to the advancements in artificial intelligence, machine learning and natural language processing we are now able to design ways to interact with systems and services in a more human way.
From the context of what we have learned through this development process along with designing conversational interfaces for a number of clients, I will explore how we define a conversational experience, delving into issues relating to who is in control of the conversation you are designing - the system or your user and how to recognise when you are losing control of the conversation. And just as importantly, what to do when that happens.
With design processes now more entrenched in product and service delivery businesses my objective with this presentation is to help arm designers with some essential knowledge and practices to ensure we make the most of this opportunity and strive to raise the level of conversation.