Age of Invisible Machines

CHAPTER 16Production Design for Hyperautomation

The notion of having real conversations with computers has been the stuff of science fiction until relatively recently. It took decades, but speech recognition has improved to a place of near human recognition, which, incidentally, is not as great as most might think. Simply translating sounds into words does not constitute understanding. Understanding comes with comprehension of what the words mean and what the user intends by speaking them. Whether you're dealing specifically with speech or with other communication channels, this is where production design comes in.

In this space, production design consists of a conversational designer creating the experiences people will have in conversations with machines. In terms of more traditional experience design it's analogous to a designer skinning a wireframe. The lead experience architect maps out the high-level journey users will take with an IDW. Now, the conversational designer creates the flows that facilitate that high-level journey, choosing words and fine-tuning the tone to bring the experience to life.

As far as users are concerned, the conversational interface is the system. This is a good thing.

But it's critical that designers and architects not confuse the interface for the system on their end.

You might be surprised at how quickly you can find yourself empathizing with a conversational interface—and this is a testament to the ingrained nature of conversation as a tool. ...