Conversational design
Designs how a person converses with a system, by voice or in writing, as in voice assistants and chatbots, drawing on how conversations between people are organized.
What it deals with
Talking is natural for people, but many assistants can't follow a conversation: they don't understand clarifications, repetitions or changes of topic.
Principles
Turns and sequences
A conversation is organized in pairs, such as question and answer, that can be expanded.
Repair
Let people ask for repetition, clarify or correct.
A few basic actions
What the person can always do: repeat, ask for help, go back or exit.
Applications in design
Use it like this
Write sample dialogues and read them aloud before designing the flow.
Avoid
Designing a menu disguised as a conversation.
Don’t fall for it
Plan what happens when the system doesn’t understand: it will happen more often than you think.
Especialidad
Methods and tools
- MethodWizard of OzTesting a system that doesn't exist yet, with a hidden person acting as the machine.
Connections
Authors and works
- 2019
Robert J. Moore and Raphael Arar
Applied conversation analysis to assistant design and proposed a framework with reusable patterns.
Sources
Original sources
- Moore, R. J., & Arar, R. (2019). Conversational UX design: A practitioner's guide to the natural conversation framework. ACM. View source: Moore, R. J., & Arar, R. (2019)
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