Conversational Design Confab 2019

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Conversational erika hall @mulegirl Design Confab 2019

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Hello!

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How did we get here?

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Idiocracy (2006) Instead of here?

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Now, a sad story…

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Words freak us out a little

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Let’s look at why.

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Human Communication a brief history

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We’ve been talking a long time

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200,000 years of conversation I’m thinking of going paleo.

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As opposed to…? 200,000 years of conversation

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30,000 years of cave painting

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30,000 years of cave painting Buffalo used to be better around here.

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Millennials ruin everything. 30,000 years of cave painting

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6,000 years of writing at all

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6,000 years of writing at all You owe me 300 Doritos.

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2,800 years of alphabets

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2,800 years of alphabets Ugh. Homework.

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569 years of movable type

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569 years of movable type

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Literacy!

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Oral Literate

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Private Public

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Oral “Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy.”

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Oral “As a dog returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their folly.” Proverbs 26:11

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Oral “Fear is the mind killer.”

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Before literacy, all knowledge was communal, social, and contextual. Ideas!

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And then…

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Literate MY DEAR AND HONORED FRIEND: I have often been desirous of writing to thee, but could not be reconciled to the thought that the letter might fall into the hands of the British, lest some printer or busy-body should publish some part of the contents, and give our friend pain, and myself censure.

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I had been cutting up some caper or other—I think it was trying to crawl up the chimney, as I had seen a little sweep do a few days previous; and my stepmother who, somehow or other, was all the time whipping me, or sending me to bed supperless,—my mother dragged me by the legs out of the chimney and packed me off to bed, though it was only two o'clock in the afternoon of the 21st June, the longest day in Literate

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Reader Writer Z Z Z The invention of tedium

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Immediate Ephemeral Direct Social Participatory Context-aware Concrete Oral Literate Mediated Passive Complex Authoritarian Solitary Closed Abstract Values

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Oral Be less busy! Leverage innovative market-speciﬁc solutions Literate

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Oral Have you tried turning it off and on again? When the machine does not receive data for a certain period of time it enters sleep mode. In sleep mode the machine acts as though it were turned off. When you choose printer default the timeout setting will be reset to default time; this can be altered in the driver. Literate

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Alive Dead

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Talking Writing

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Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead. —Gene Fowler , American Screenwriter and Journalist

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But then…twist!

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Hey, neighbor!

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Say it with me “Orality knits persons into community.” —Rev. Walter Ong

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How’s it going? We just roll with it

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We just roll with it

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Yes!

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Nope!

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Conversation How does it work?

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Shared goal It starts with a

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Halp!

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OK!

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Cooperation “ Make your contribution such as it is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged.” Paul Grice’s cooperative principle

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Cooperation “[Read the room and pitch in.]”

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Quantity Quality Relation Manner Gricean Maxims

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Gricean Maxims Just enough info Truthful Relevant Brief and unambiguous

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And one more… Polite!

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Politeness “ Don’t impose.   Give options.   Make the listener feel good. ” Robin Lakoff’s Politeness Principle

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What makes conversation work? Cooperative Goal-oriented Fast Truthful Turn-based Polite Error-tolerant

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Smart? “ If we believe machine intelligence will make our applications smarter, they might as well just start talking to us. That’s why conversation is the new interface.” – Roy Bahat, Bloomberg Beta

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Is conversation the best interface?

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Not if it’s more effort to use.

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No need to learn a new interface?

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How can I help you?

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I need to update my billing address.

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I’m sorry, I didn’t quite get that.

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I’ll just use the website, thanks.

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Whew!

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I need a lasagne recipe! Isn’t about the mode

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The definition of a lossy algorithm is… Isn’t about the mode

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It’s about the principles Cooperative Goal-oriented Fast Turn-based Truthful Polite And error tolerant!

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Software is on a path to participating in our culture as a peer. So, it should behave like a person—alive and present. Being conversational

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Being conversational This doesn’t necessarily mean imitating human conversation, but using the principles to be more humane.

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Humans and Computers

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Humans are good at Empathy Persuasion Unstructured solving Assessing relevance

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Humans are bad at Remembering Calculating Logic Precise repetition

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Computers are good at Remembering Calculating Logic Precise repetition

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Computers are bad at Empathy Persuasion Unstructured solving Assessing relevance

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Better together Feelings & Flexibility Rules Retention Patterns & Prediction

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Better together, if… Humans put humans first

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“ The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.” — Bill Gates Life is really complex

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Automating bad processes gets you a zombie apocalypse! Life is really complex Braaains, please.

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Automation is being applied to bad processes Halp!

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Systems designed around new tech, not humans

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Which one is best? Hmmm

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What takes the least effort? Hmmm

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It depends!

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What is most cooperative?

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Ditch literacy “ Computer literacy…is really a euphemism for forcing human beings to stretch their thinking to understand the inner workings of application logic, rather than having software-enabled products stretch to meet people’s usual ways of thinking.” — Alan Cooper

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There is no one right channel or mode

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What matters for a given goal and context? Urgency Privacy Accessibility Cost Familiarity Status

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Know your role and value “Conversational” means context-aware, no matter what the technology.