Ben Sauer

UX Designer + Strategist at Clearleft

Workshop
Fri 26 May, 2017, 14:00

Design Your First Voice Interface

If machine intelligence is taking over the world, voice interfaces (VUIs) are a close second. Fortunately, the evolution of human speech makes most of us terrific listeners and speakers, especially when compared to machines. Unfortunately, while our brains are wired for speech, designing a VUI still takes work.

Modern voice interfaces are an opportunity to create better products in new contexts. Smart adoption of VUIs in the right environments makes interaction simple, pleasurable, accessible, and lowers cognitive load. And voice interfaces fulfill the vision of ubiquitous computing and the Internet of Things - keeping our attention on the people around us rather than devices.

In this hands-on workshop, participants will learn about the ideal contexts for voice interfaces, hone their listening and speaking skills by critiquing dialogues, craft a voice personality, and use improvisational techniques to design and structure conversations.

Each workshop team will test the effectiveness and enjoyability of their prototyped voice interfaces using the Wizard of Oz methods practiced by teams at Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. And each participant will take home resources useful for future VUI work.

Join us to expand your design skills with a new interaction tool that’s as old as humanity: voice.

This workshop is for anyone curious about working in voice, including designers, decision-makers, and engineers who are interested in ubiquitous computing, calm technology, bots, NO-UI, and thinking outside of the screen.

You will learn:

  • How to design a VUI
  • How designing ‘conversation’ differs from screen interactions
  • Understanding of how to prototype voice with Wizard of Oz methods

Please note: in this session, one Mac laptop will be needed per team, so if you have one, it would be useful to have it with you

About Ben Sauer

Ben Sauer is a UX Strategist at Clearleft. Ben has an English degree, but don't hold that against him. He specialises in research and product strategy for companies large and small across the world, including the BBC, Penguin Random House, and also mentors startups. Organisations hire Ben to upgrade their design skills and design culture, so running workshops is his bread and butter. Recently he’s been writing about voice interfaces and speaking on the subject with audiences across Europe.

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