The Secret Lives of Conversational Designers

Featuring:

Karen Kaushansky, Senior Conversation Designer at Google

Listen to Karen’s tips and tricks to overcome challenges that she has seen as a veteran in conversation design. The conversation design team at Google uses a pyramid to define human language understanding. Words assess speech sounds, combine into words are at the top. Next, there is syntax which processes phrases and sentences. The following is semantics and pragmatics which derive meaning to the human language. Lastly, context and world knowledge interpret meaning in cultural context.

Surprisingly, Karen suggests that conversation design works with this same pyramid but upside down. She suggests that developers design for today but plan for tomorrow. Focusing on major vision and goal setting is most important.

Karen also suggests that conversation designers’ have options, persuade and grow thick skin. As conversation designers, we wear many hats but it’s important to be patient as we create alternatives and keep a vision in the forefront as we design.