Design + AI: what's next?

Introduction

With the rapid rise in AI growth and enablement a larger and larger set of institutions are beginning to grapple with what the now larger presence of this new "tool" means. Aside from the large scale fears and within the smaller cheers it's hard to tell where everyone will come out in it's wake.

As a designer one of the more exciting elements for me has been looking at how this tool not only means a change in the way we think about design but also in how we will go about doing design.

With more and more tools launched on what seems to be an hourly basis and an even larger set of use cases by the minute, it's becoming more and more imperative to think about how design will evolve into its next phase.

A New Persona

As we begin to plan user journeys for AI enabled experiences we need to begin to appreciate that apart from the now human user there may also need be an additional machine user as well. Journeys will have to be mapped with simple and intuitive user flows that allow both groups to be able to quickly and accurately navigate through the experience with a different set of feedback and progression for each.

Machine users will have their own set of needs and demands and models such as those used to enable the new Rabbit R1 device will begin to display their way of "viewing" our digital experiences along with their way of wasting and needing from these.

Furthermore, models will initially each require a set overall understanding of the experience before they can learn and grow from it and part of that will likely involve a form of onboarding for these models.

In this way the story of your experience will now be told to a newer set of users for whom the experience will transcend just a physical UI manifestation.

Singular Experiences

As we begin to incorporate new personas we also begin to appreciate the growing need of forming singular experiences. These would be a standard set of user patterns and interactions that would be governed by a broader design system that would allow designers to be able to ensure they are able to cross the boundaries for both user groups when creating their experiences. Examples of this would include simpler ways to give user feedback that don't just rely on micro interactions or a broader way of depicting the progression through a wizard that isn't tied to a visual stepper.

Experiences will now begin to transcend past just the UI and will likely cross over into other mediums such as voice, CLI and even data design. As the ways in which machine learning models will engage with your experience will vary there is a need to expand deign to a wider set of elements and allow these to be unified by a key set of guidelines that allow the experience to remain as true to the intention of the designers as possible.

Indicusl applications and broader web based experience will also eventually become secondary as the primary points of contact for human users as well will likely be elements such as voice or gesture commands. This means that there will be a layer above what designers currently create that will act as a point of access to these experiences. The most relatable way to think about this is that abuser may have Uber installed on their device but they will now no longer need just the device to hail a ride as they could simply issue a command on their IoT device, mobile device, public access device or other and it would automatically through voice recognition authenticate and through AI connect them to their attached service provider (Uber).

This new pathway for users to interact and the other pathways that machine learning models will interact with means that there will be a need to align experiences more and more and designers and design system engineers will face a growing challenge to standardize these.

Design workflow

As the complexity of what designers will work on grows the overall workflow for a designer will also need to adapt.

Design requirements will now be tenfold and that means that designers themselves may need to begin finding and enabling themselves using AI powered tooling in order to begin to manage this scope.

Incorporating more AI tooling within their workflow has the added benefit of also educating designers on the new users they will now be creating for. This almost symbiotic relationship will yield a wider understanding of how to grow AI for experiences and places designers in an critical role for helping develop and bridge the gap between business and AI.

Research methodologies and workshops will now likely be more crucial than before as there will be a need to examine experience more intrinsically both for functionality but also for responsibility. Designers will have an added onus of ensuring that as wide a set of users not only have access to functioning experiences but also experiences that do not lose a threat of insult of exclusion. This will mean examining data that is used to train models as well as verting model behavior and interaction within the enabled experience to ensure the most inclusive of spaces is being developed

Conclusion

AI is not going to be leaving us and has been evolving with us over the last few years. The rapid growth we're seeing how will likely change but that doesn't negate its presence. This means that denying what it will do to and for us as designers would be fundamentally flawed. Instead embracing and growing and understanding as well as acting as the cohesive counterpoint for it will position designers inna more valuable space within institutions and

make them a pivotal part of what's next.

Modelling tutorial

After several requests to put together some tutorial style content for some of my creative work I decided to create a quick overview of my creation process for a simple model.

Using basic principles and simple ideas the tutorial walks through the thinking behind the initial creation of this piece.

3D ML WOrkflow

One of the most tedious parts of building out my 3D scenes, for me at least, is always the modelling.

Discovering the power of some of the newer models on #huggingface spaces has allowed me to develop a new workflow for creating some quick assets

💭 A stable diffusion model allows you to develop a text to image reference that forms the basis for your character or object

🖼️ Cleanup your elements in the image in Photoshop or Figma and quickly make your reference ready for the next model

🎮 Using DreamGaussian to take your image to 3D, probably the most back and forth portion of this as you try to fine tune and play with settings to get it just right

The only note is that the models themselves are highly primitive and working with their details can be difficult but overall a fun quick way to simulate

Convergence II

DEVELOPMENT 

With a backlog in place and some key journey points identified, we began working on what would now be called the "How Am I Doing?" journey. Thematically this was an overarching term that summarised a task flow that was typical for almost all users.During the testing period, users wanted to remain informed, they wanted to be able to perform basic trading functions and they wanted to investigate things. This journey would encompass all of these elements and start off as the first of many identified microjourneys.

As the team began working on stories and refining them, the design team actively worked to stay a few steps ahead, ensuring that refined ideas and concepts were present to be worked on when stories were ready to be taken into the sprints. The design team would refine visual concepts, conduct user validation and provide specifications in advance of the development teams work on a particular story. 

Working this far in advance allowed the design team to adapt to changes when they arose as well as provide a future state perspective on the work being done. This ensured all other team members were on board and that there was a clear vision of the destination to which we were all working.  

Concurrently with the development process, a part of the design team began conducting new discovery sessions. These sessions would serve as the fuel for future pieces of work that would come further down the development pipeline. These new discoveries tackled microjourneys that had been identified during the RPD process. Additionally, they served as touchpoints with the users, where current ideas could also be quickly tested and validated.

As these activities continued, a process flow began to form - one where future state ideas were refined, taken into sprint, worked on, refined further and outputs produced, all along being validated by user input. This process began to become effective in foreseeing and uncovering new opportunities as well and led to a small pivot, where an additional piece of work was added that was seen as an enhancement to the work already being done.

PIVOT 

A test to the established process occurred in late August, when it was decided that an additional feature would be added to the ongoing work. Due to the success of what had occurred with the project far, a new feature was identified as being an extension of the work being done. From an experience standpoint, this was seen as an augmentation to what was already being worked on and was seen as a new value add that would be welcomed by users. This meant, however that priorities had to be refocused and that work had to be rearranged to accommodate this change. What resulted was a moment for the team to be as proactive as possible, to maintain the status quo while adding in supplemental pieces of effort. Would this mean a drastic change to the processes already established as effective and efficient?

The answer was surprisingly, no. It was respected that what had been done in the past to lead the team to the current successes would have to be retained in order to respect this new piece of work and give it the same quality that had come to be expected.All of this led to us resuming a new discovery process for this new piece of work that would then dovetail into the ongoing work.

TODAY

The project “journeys” on, with ongoing work occurring simultaneously with new discovery, leading to a constantly recurring cycle that generates new pieces of work while at the same time producing refined outputs. As the release date approaches, the hope is that this cadence can be and that new learnings and opportunities will allow this this project to grow further into a diverse and sophisticated final state.

KEY LEARNINGS

1. Collaboration is the only way to grow. Having the team come together at various points from the start of the process has led to a well-informed, highly functional team that has a growing understanding of all the roles and is ready to move flexibly as new challenges occur.

2. Ensuring there is a shared understanding of the problems and issues being worked on as well as the potential solutions and ideas ensures that the team continues along a similar path with amicable agreement between all parties.

3. Future-thought is key in ensuring that work is ongoing and continuing to remain relevant. Having the ability to conduct discoveries on all new features ensures they are well researched,suitably informed and respecting the needs not just of the users but also of the business and other stakeholders. It also ensures that best practice is actively promoted as it requires an overview of what is currently out there and currently considered good practice.

4. Design as a group has to have a presence at all levels. This kind of influence ensures that there is an understanding of the value of the design process, how it actually binds the project together and how it allows for the future of the product. Collaboration with other teams outside of design also encourages an active engagement in design processes, so that they are better informed and non-linear.

CONCLUSION

 As we approach our first release date there is a sense if wisdom that has come with having endured a year’s worth of learning and discovery. This has happened two-fold as it applies to learnings made about the product itself but also about the team itself. With an exciting new product on the horizon, the team can finally begin to make the first of many steps in a convergence towards the final state of a newly redesigned product.

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End the first day of your workshop by explaining how this was a day of information gathering. You were helping the team rally around a main goal and using a series of exercises to support information gathering around that goal. The team is therefore becoming more aligned around the key objectives of the design and is learning about the importance of the UX process in achieving this goal.

PART 2 - FIRST RESULTS & THE ROAD AHEAD

The second day of your workshop should centre around providing simple deliverables based on the information gathered on the previous day. Depending on the exercises conducted you want to provide a few assets that align with that work and demonstrate a cohesion of the ideas generated. In this way you are giving the team an understanding of how a picture can begin to be formed for their redesign initiative. A sample of how the results of each phase could be presented is shown below:

Discuss what you have begun to create and incorporate elements of education into how these are iterative processes that you will continue to perform during the redesign process, each time further refining your outputs. Simple notes about how this can also add overall business value will allow for further buy-in by the team and will encourage a design positive experience.

CONCLUSION

Creating a big picture workshop will allow you to engage your team in a way that they can begin to appreciate what the design process is and how it can help them and the project along. Showing quick results through simple exercises will indicate the efficiency of your process and provide visibility into the importance of each phase in the process. Overall, having a full team onboard with your work as well as onboard with the overall project goal will ensure a streamlined project flow that should generate positive results in time.

Convergence I

INTRODUCTION

Just over a year ago I was brought in to assist on a project that at the time was indicated to be a "redesign of the current Investorline experience". At the time, I was certain that this would be a project similar to most redesigns - you are going to pretty up the existing site with few to no alterations. This assumption would be proven very wrong, as a year and change later we have a refined product that has not only built on the existing experience but has taken it hopefully beyond its previous life. 

At the start, we began exploring the issue internally with our understanding of what was to be solved and we quickly realized that this would have to be a user informed process. We were required to perform a redesign but precisely what would need to be redesigned and how would we go about doing this? We needed to come up with a way to understand this in a manner that was structured and sustainable in the long term.

To guide ourselves through this understanding we decided upon a few redesign objectives, that would bind this exploration:

1. An Updated Experience

The current Investorline experience has now begun to show signs of aging. This redesign process aims at giving it new life through a full revamp that better updates it to meet today’s best practices and investor expectations. 

2. A Client Informed Experience

In order to ensure that Investorline continues to be a product that is widely used, we are taking on a client centric approach to the redesign. This involves heavy inclusion of customer insight throughout the design experience.

3. A Customized & Empowering Experience

As Investorline grows there is a need to personalize the product in a way that allows the individual needs of investors to be more accurately served within the experience. Investors should feel capable and empowered within their journeys.

Using these guidelines, we began the process of our first exploration. 

DISCOVERY

To begin investigating the problem at hand, we began an initial round of user interviews. The objective of these sessions was to allow us to gather some initial insights and understandings around what users were currently expecting out of their investing experiences. This would help us understand the current landscape but also what it is that swayed user decisions around who they chose to invest with. These interviews were conducted over a two day period with users representing a wide range of ages, experiences and brokerages.  

To facilitate the sessions a wide range of internal users were involved in the interviewing process, with representatives from business,strategy, design and technology all present. This was done to encourage a shared understanding within the internal teams of the problem that was being worked on as well as it allowed team members to hear directly from users what they are expecting out of a final product. 

The interviews provided a lot of great insights and validated some of the preliminary ideas we had. They also uncovered a series of new understandings such as the fact that there may be more work to be done than initially expected and that there were several underserved user needs.

In order to solidify and work on these findings, a design sprint was held. While not a conventional time to hold one, the processes and thinking involved in these sprints is ideal for forming a framework for future work. With fresh insights from the sessions, a design sprint was held in two parts with various internal users participating in various capacities. The value of this was immediate, there was a shared understanding of the overall problem as well as an immediate investment by internal teams to work on finding effective solutions.

a few days later, the output of the sprints was a series of ideas and inspirations. In addition to this, personas could now be created and refined with some user data, beyond the user data that had initially been gathered.  

With several pieces of this puzzle now manifest, it was proposed that we would create a high level proof of concept. This would act as a starter in the process of creating pieces of work that would all come together to solve the issues that had been identified with the current experience, as well as any new ideas we would then want to incorporate. 

Developing the proof of concept involved incorporating a wide range of ideas and consolidating them into a flexible prototype, that could then be refined as more understanding was obtained. This prototype would also serve as a key focal point for the next stage of our process, the Rapid Product Definition (RPD).

RAPID PRODUCT DEFINITION

We had ideas, we had a concept but how would we build and grow what we had now understood? The answer was a Rapid Production Definition workshop. 

Over the span of a month, the future team that would work on this redesign initiative, was assembled together in a remote space to begin understanding how we would begin building out our new ideas. Through a series of exercises and workshops, we walked through a roadmap that would form the basis of all future work to be done. This backlog comprised of pieces of work that originated from the proof of concept that had just been created. The goal of doing this was to take apart the ideas that we would need to build and understand how we would refine them over time into their final iterations.  

These sessions brought together all team members and allowed everyone an opportunity to provide their insights and expertise on the work that would have to be done. It also allowed everyone to align around an understanding of the work and the future state.  

A month later, we were ready to begin work, with a proof of concept that acted as a foundation upon which blocks of work would now be applied to bring it into reality. At the same time, we had a group investment in what was to be done and a clearer understanding of how we were going to go about doing it. From a design standpoint, epics were created within the design team that allowed the discovery - refinement - development flow to be further structured.

To Be Continued…

View fullsize

End the first day of your workshop by explaining how this was a day of information gathering. You were helping the team rally around a main goal and using a series of exercises to support information gathering around that goal. The team is therefore becoming more aligned around the key objectives of the design and is learning about the importance of the UX process in achieving this goal.

PART 2 - FIRST RESULTS & THE ROAD AHEAD

The second day of your workshop should centre around providing simple deliverables based on the information gathered on the previous day. Depending on the exercises conducted you want to provide a few assets that align with that work and demonstrate a cohesion of the ideas generated. In this way you are giving the team an understanding of how a picture can begin to be formed for their redesign initiative. A sample of how the results of each phase could be presented is shown below:

Discuss what you have begun to create and incorporate elements of education into how these are iterative processes that you will continue to perform during the redesign process, each time further refining your outputs. Simple notes about how this can also add overall business value will allow for further buy-in by the team and will encourage a design positive experience.

CONCLUSION

Creating a big picture workshop will allow you to engage your team in a way that they can begin to appreciate what the design process is and how it can help them and the project along. Showing quick results through simple exercises will indicate the efficiency of your process and provide visibility into the importance of each phase in the process. Overall, having a full team onboard with your work as well as onboard with the overall project goal will ensure a streamlined project flow that should generate positive results in time.

Alignment

Tackling a new design process can be valuable but more often than not challenging. This is especially the case when you are trying to incorporate design into a product that had little or no design intervention at its inception.

How do you begin to introduce design thinking into the process so that what you do yield at the end is a comprehensive, purposeful user experience?

The answer lies in the foundation laying at the start of the initiative. Educating key stakeholders about the value of beginning to think in a design-centric manner will allow you to move more flexibly later in the project as it will indicate design value upfront, giving the team time to begin to see how design will allow them to accomplish their goals in a way that continues to keep users happy.

There are several avenues by which this could be done but one quick and time efficient way to get everyone on board is to conduct a short UX workshop. The purpose of this exercise will be to generate small results within a short period of time, to demonstrate the value of various UX processes.

Lets examine how a simple two session workshop can allow you to accomplish this.

PART 1 - ENGAGEMENT & DISCOVERY

To begin the process of alignment its important to introduce key concepts that will allow the team to begin to understand the UX design process, while gathering around a main goal. Having the whole team attend a group session like this will allow full visibility into the coming process and will allow for a space within which learning and understanding can begin.

To set this session up, organize a series of exercises built around the UX process. Pick 2-3 exercises you would perform as a designer and incorporate them into group activities that can be performed on the day. Some ideas could include a persona creation exercise, a simple journey mapping and perhaps a basic screen layout exercise. Use these exercises to supplement a main goal for the redesign, which you will outline at the start of your session with the team.

With each exercise, explain the concept in simple terms, outlining the objective of the work that is being done. Follow this up by including some basic questions that lead the group towards answering in a way that is functional to the exercise. End this instructional segment by explaining what will happen next, once the exercise is complete - what will be created from the information generated or where will this lead the project.

A sample of this activity arrangement can be found below:

View fullsize

End the first day of your workshop by explaining how this was a day of information gathering. You were helping the team rally around a main goal and using a series of exercises to support information gathering around that goal. The team is therefore becoming more aligned around the key objectives of the design and is learning about the importance of the UX process in achieving this goal.

PART 2 - FIRST RESULTS & THE ROAD AHEAD

The second day of your workshop should centre around providing simple deliverables based on the information gathered on the previous day. Depending on the exercises conducted you want to provide a few assets that align with that work and demonstrate a cohesion of the ideas generated. In this way you are giving the team an understanding of how a picture can begin to be formed for their redesign initiative. A sample of how the results of each phase could be presented is shown below:

Discuss what you have begun to create and incorporate elements of education into how these are iterative processes that you will continue to perform during the redesign process, each time further refining your outputs. Simple notes about how this can also add overall business value will allow for further buy-in by the team and will encourage a design positive experience.

CONCLUSION

Creating a big picture workshop will allow you to engage your team in a way that they can begin to appreciate what the design process is and how it can help them and the project along. Showing quick results through simple exercises will indicate the efficiency of your process and provide visibility into the importance of each phase in the process. Overall, having a full team onboard with your work as well as onboard with the overall project goal will ensure a streamlined project flow that should generate positive results in time.

Measures for Success II

In the last post we examined some of the ideas and concepts that can be used to create a framework. We continue this exploration into creating a impact framework with a look at an example as well as how the completed framework could be implemented.

Sample Framework

To see how they could work together, however, we will take a look at a restricted example. In the example we are looking at the effectiveness of an improvement to a checkout flow. The goals we select here are based on the HEART objectives: Happiness and Retention - with metrics being used to track these ( signals and specific metrics not discussed).  To further simplify the example, only three work phases were selected within which checkpoints would be performed to evaluate the value of certain pieces of work: 

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Implementation

The exact nature by which this framework can be implemented will depend on the project, the time allowed for work and the budget. What is essential, however, is that there is an element of testing and user research incorporated at some point in the process. This will be a key way to generate the required metrics and will make the process more objective in its findings. 

An ideal implementation would involve secondary user testing prior to the start of the design work (Pre-Design Phase) with interviews and research being performed to understand the product itself, its contexts and how the new work is going to augment it. Once this is complete, an internal brainstorming with key stake holders of the high impact drivers that should be tracked will help determine the key goals of the evaluation. With these in place, metrics can be decided upon for each of the measured categories -Outputs,Outcomes and Impacts. Tools to perform this will also be selected.

During the Design Phase there is a continued monitoring of these metrics through user testing. The Post-Design phase  will involved extensive user research on completed work, results of which will further add into overall findings about the work completed and its performance. With these metrics in place a more comprehensive report of the work from start to end can be prepared.

The final part of the implementation is the presentation. This information should be presented to a wide audience, ideally everyone involved in the work but it could also be presented company wide. Communicating the results of the work will act as an education on the value of UX and how it fits into the overall process. Results will prove the worth of what has been requested and will provide quick buy in. The wider the audience, the easier it will become to act cross functionally and obtain what you may need.

Conclusion

Frameworks such as this can be moulded to suit the needs of the project, company, or designer. How they are implemented and what they contain will be determined more specifically. Their value, however will certainly be guaranteed through the results and the thinking they will generate.

Measuring Success I

Introduction

Designers have and will continue to have a difficult time explaining and justifying what it is we do. This happens for a range of reasons - the space is constantly developing, requirements of the role are constantly changing and more importantly, what the role is doing for the overall production process is becoming more and more obscure as designers become increasingly cross functional. How then do we begin to explain our role in a way thats comprehensible but more importantly, measurable? 

As much as we may or may not like it, numbers speak volumes, literally. For designers, it has therefore become  increasingly important to incorporate measures of value into their design process, in order to begin to justify what it is they are doing for the overall production process. 

Developing a framework that does this can be tedious but once completed could be the difference needed, to make sure an idea is passed through successfully. Having encountered this challenge recently, I conceptualized a framework that would hopefully guide me in ensuring that I was able to communicate the value of my work in a way that was comprehensive and effective.

Framework Inspiration & Outline

To determine the effectiveness of my process, I looked for frameworks that would allow me to explain what my work was doing, how effective it was internally and externally as well as what value it was adding to the product overall. The Digital Impact Framework proved to be a suitable candidate for this. Incorporating elements of Googles HEART Framework as well, would allow me to better communicate my process by providing a more holistic view.

I started off with a basic outline to better learn how I could further develop the framework. I created three phases within which measures could be placed: Pre-Design,Design,Post-Design. Separating my process into these three broad phases would allow room for modification depending on the projects needs. It would also allow me to determine the impact of my work in both the present and in the future.

Each phase of the framework contained elements of the HEART framework as well. HEART consists of 5 pillars that help you to measure the quality of your UX work and define specific metrics for each selected goal. These goals include; Happiness, Engagement, Adoption, Retention, and Task Success. Given that every project is unique, it became essential to try and pick which of these pillars I would adopt, depending on the project needs. I would include some or all pillars in each evaluation checkpoint.

Goals could be set in a more granular manner or they could be general. Each phase could have a broad goal and a metric associated with that goal, to allow you to collect data accordingly. How specific your goals and metrics are will come down to time and budget, however setting broad goals is relatively inexpensive and measuring these in a cost effective manner is very possible.

Once all of these elements were in place, I then began to bring them together into a framework. Within this framework, work would be assessed based on Inputs, Outputs, Outcomes and Impacts. Lets explore each by looking at some of the questions you may ask yourself when evaluating each item:

Inputs - This describes items/resources/elements that go into doing the work

What went into this piece of work? What internal and external resources were used? How much of the overall budget was allocated to this piece of work?

Outputs - This describes the results of the work being done

What measurable (numerical) items resulted from this work? How many users were/would be affected by this work? What user testing results were attributed to this piece of work?

Outcomes - This describes short/long term observations that resulted due to the work

What subjective assessments can be made about the work? What internal changes occurred due to this piece of work? How many UX efficiencies were built out of this process?

Impacts - This looks at how the work has changed the the organization internally and externally

What lasting results have come out of this work? What HEART results can be seen due to this work?

Inputs could be described in very rudimentary terms, however the outcomes and impacts would be connected to the pillars of the HEART framework.

In the next post we will explore what this framework looks like and how it could potentially be implemented.

To be continued…

Memorable Voices II

Positive Siren Songs

Remember the last film you watched. Think back to how every scene was scored with a particular set of music and how that music made you feel. One thing you will realize is that your experience was heightened by the score as it allowed for a different avenue through which you accessed your movie-going experience.

Music is a key feature of sound design. It allows for a more emotive experience which in turn makes it a memorable one. When key scenes in film are heightened by the score, the moments become all the more realized within your memory. UI sound design should follow a similar experience and preliminary examples of this can be seen already, just think about the arrangement you hear when your Mac has started up.

Interactions with voice interfaces would benefit from a more complex use of music in this manner as it would allow the user to begin to be further immersed in their current interaction. Simple feedback sounds provide key checkpoints during the user's journey, but music over an extended period allows the user to be continually engaged in the experience, therefore keeping them immersed for longer.

This becomes key for certain types of interactions which require the user to be present for a prolonged period of time. An example of this would be a GPS navigation system. When the user has begun an active navigation there are brief points of silence in between each set of directions. These moments are pivotal as they are an opportunity for other stimuli to break the user's experience. This would mean that the user could be easily distracted away from the current function at hand and would begin giving their attention to other tasks, leaving the experience only to be reminded of it moments later by the next set of directions. At this second point of reentry, however, the user is less engaged and more likely to begin to make errors as the train of attention has been disrupted.

A better experience in this case would be a more passive way of reminding the user that they are still a part of an ongoing interaction with the interface. This is where music can come in. As the user awaits the next instruction they are played a musical arrangement that corresponds to the direction of their movement. The arrangement could be made unique to the application and would allow the user to continually recognize that they are on the correct path and are still following their GPS.  Conversely, if the user is going in the wrong direction there would be a vocal notification of this followed by the playing of an arrangement corresponding to this action. In this way the user continues to have an enhanced interaction with their voice interface that isn't entirely vocal and is more passive and reinforcing.Music in this way is another tool that can be added to the designers toolbox that would allow for a richer, more rewarding experience.

Imitation Is Flattery

Who you are is almost always reflected in how you sound. Your personality shines through your voice interactions and begins to form a key part of people's memory of you. This extends itself to human-machine voice interactions as well. An interaction with  machine with a personality is a more emphatic,more rewarding interaction.

As a user you have an expectation of the type of interaction you will have with a voice interface. This expectation comes with allowances for several accommodations such as a reduced sense of disappointment when the device fails to give you the most precise response. These expectations however can be exceeded and leveraged to create better and more memorable experiences through the use of personality. If the device sounded more personable in its tone you would be more likely to be forgiving of its error.

Much like any real interaction personality adds color and creates an increased engagement in the experience. If the UI you are interacting with actually learns to talk to you in a way that is pleasing to you, you are more likely to want to interact with it and begin to form memories of it. Empathic experiences that are tailored to the user will allow the user to see an increased value to being in the experience. Seams in the programming can also begin to be masked in this way as cycled answers that may be used in conversation trees will begin to appear more dynamic to the user as they are partially distracted by the amazement at developing a more human experience with the interface.

An experience like this with the interface is one you will remember and one that can be continued to be reinforced by having the UI’s personality have more of the user's input reflected in it.

Conclusion

Enriched voice experiences are the logical next step to trying to drive an adoption of this new form of interaction. Taking a more human approach to designing these experiences will allow for these experiences to become more engaging and inclusive. Using emotional design we can begin to create experiences that are going to be seen by the user less as simple services and more as valuable, memorable, human interactions.  

Further Reading

Make It So: Interaction Design Lessons from Science Fiction

A Review of Personality In Voice Based Man-Machine Interactions

Memorable Voices I

Introduction

As we become increasingly independent of the need to be attached to our physical devices, we have developed a greater requirement to have our wants/needs served through other avenues. We exist in a world that constantly wants us to be “free” to do more by taking away the hassle and friction of simple tasks.

One of the ways in which this has been most prominently done is through the introduction of voice command interfaces. We are now able to issue tasks, have work done and more through simple basic conversations with our devices.

This has opened up a whole world of possibilities and has allowed us as users to become increasingly empowered. For designers, however, this has proposed a new set of challenges, key of which is how to create immersive, memorable and human experiences that you cannot see or feel.

If we reflect on each time we have had a conversation with an automated personal assistant, there is very little that sticks out about your journey, other than the fact that you knew you got the answer you wanted or that the task you wanted to have completed was actually completed. There is little attachment to the journey and for this reason it remains forgettable.

In order for us to continue to value these experiences and therefore make better use of them, it would be ideal to begin to introduce additional complexities into these interactions so that the journey begins to feel memorable. Attaching a memory to an experience of a product is key in ensuring users continue to see a value in it and therefore continue to feel a desire to engage with the product. Once they value a product in this way, they are more likely to be open to what else the product could do in the future.

The question now becomes how do we make these experiences memorable?

Surprise Me

Every conversation is like a trip with a start point, the journey and the end. With audio interfaces, we predictably have mapped out all of these parts, using conversation trees that are meant to lead us to the most appropriate and accurate end state. These guided conversations allow you to reach your outcome more succinctly and are therefore more favored.

What these interactions miss however is that there is no memory formed after they are completed. It would be useful if you could recall a conversation with Siri the same way in which you recall your conversation with your favorite barista. You still want Siri to prepare your coffee but you want it in a way that it becomes part of your catalogue of memories of Siri.

Adding dynamics in your interaction is one of the ways in which we can make these events more memorable. These dynamics add rare “wow” moments that are retained in the memory of the user. These dynamics can be introduced within the conversation trees in such a way that the same path is still retained but also further enhanced.

As an example we can look at an interaction with Google Assistant. Through machine learning Google is able to remember frequently visited places and some of the experiences had there. Why then no leverage this in our interaction with Google Assistant so that they remember a place that is frequently visited by you and make a remark about it when you try and setup directions to it?

“ Ok Google, take me to Sam’s Club”

“ Sure, you must love this place!”

Microinteractions like this are not that different from the mini wow moments we have with more visual UI’s (think the heart burst interaction on Twitter). They exist to wow us and draw our attention into the experience even more. We also remember these moments later especially when they are still novel.

In this way we can begin to add little keys into our voice experiences that will draw in the user some more and get them engaged in the product in a way that makes it all the more

Further Reading

Praise Is Fleeting, but Brickbats We Recall 

Social and Cognitive Approaches to Interpersonal Communication

Delivering Design

Explaining the UX process in delivery heavy environments by creating an introduction to UX and how it can work in these spaces.

There has been a current inefficiency in my working past with regards to the implementation of actual UX design work as opposed to a run of UI creation. UX and UI form two different parts of the design process and while it may be easy to say both are combined, the amount and nature of work involved in either of them is starkly different.

Let’s begin by discussing what UI work is, since it is actually the one piece most people are familiar with - it’s literally the interface you see. In a complete design process this is actually the final step. It is essentially the flesh on the body you have created during the product design process.

During this phase, a lot of visual work is completed which includes outlining visual standards for the products (styleguides, brand standards, etc) as well as creating high fidelity mockups of wireframes previously generated. These are the final screens and they are normally organized in the flows that have also been previously generated. A key thing to note here is that UI work is not the same as branding work. When a company is branded an established visual system is put in place for it that reflects the companys’ voice, style and overall public persona. This work is usually tasked to a larger team and usually done via a marketing agency.

So what then do we can be offered for the UI component in a delivery heavy design process?

This is fairly straightforward. We offer a series of high fidelity mockups that have taken into account an established styleguide/branding guideline. We are simply fleshing out wireframes we would have created in a way that is easy for development to understand as well as allow for presentable materials that stakeholders may want to use externally.

We may also develop prototypes using these screens that will allow allow developers, stakeholders and any other interested parties to better understand the interactivity and functionality of the product. From a design standpoint this is the delivery phase, and is therefore a culmination of the design process. Work may take place after this that is iterative but this work should not substantially change the nature of the product and should add value to the product.

So what then would the UX process involve?

UX refers to the overall user experience design process that occurs during a product's development. This is more than just how usable a product can be made.

UX involves taking into account the customer's journey when they engage with the product and looks at how they may interact with it as well as how the business will interact with them. It is the creation of a stream of communication between the business and the user and vice versa. 

The UX process can be summarized into a series of phases, that closely match the delivery process: Discover & Define- Design - Test & Deliver.

Let's look at what happens at each phase:

Discover and Define - Much like the work done by BA's and Delivery Managers, this is a phase where we discover the problem the business is actually trying to solve. For the UX designer, this is where we hold meetings with the stakeholders to asses their needs and what they are ideally looking for. Rough sketches can actually be done at this point to reflect ideas being generated as well as encourage stakeholder buy-in.

Overall this should terminate with a value proposition being created that will allow the designer to better understand what the product will actually look like (conceptually).

There may also be an element of research done here, this could be direct user research or competitive analysis and doing this will depend on the business needs and resources. It is key to note that a well researched product is a superior product and therefore this activity should be encouraged.

Key deliverables could include- Persona definition, Research analysis, experience and empathy maps

Design - This process begins by creating a few conceptual sketches that are used to capture ideas generated during brainstorming. It is key to have stakeholder involvement in this phase so that they feel involved in the product creation but also so that we are able to capture as many of ideas and needs as we can. This phase is usually iterative and can last a few days. It is important to have this phase fully completed so as to ensure ideas can be further refined during the wireframe stage.

Once the sketches have been reviewed and key functionality assessed, we can begin to create wireframes. These are low fidelity mockups that create basic user flows through the product. Each frame will contain key functionality that has been previously discussed and the wireframes overall should be a refinement of the ideas initially generated. The purpose of this phase is to ensure everyone is on board with how the product will function, feel and develop. This is NOT a visual phase and therefore it is key to note that subjective assessments of how artifacts look should be kept to a minimum.

With flows confirmed and functionality also reviewed, a prototype could potentially be created out of these wireframes to begin onboarding functionality and flow to other parties such as development. It is important to do this as it will allow for development to comment on what can/cannot be done as well as for the business to better asses time allocation on work to be done during development.

Once the wireframes are generated we can begin work on developing a visual style for the product. Preferably a style guide is presented by the business to allow for a carefully applied visual look on the overall product. If the guide is not available, a simple visual style application is applied that can be changed later when a complete branding guideline is produced. The end result of this process is a high fidelity mockup of the product. This is the most time consuming portion of the overall design process as artifacts have to be created and overall visuals refined for consistency. It is key to note that this phase does require a visual designer to be engaged in addition to a UX designer as per industry standards.

Key deliverables here might include - high fidelity mockups, design specifications (functionality outlines, user flows), a high fidelity prototype.

Test & Deliver - This is the final stage of the UX process and sets up where the UX process could go next. At this point the product in its first iteration is presented for testing by the general public. This could be through a launch or through an actual user testing session. Feedback will be received at this point and it is important to capture all of it. This will determine where the product goes next and what additional design sprints need to be added.

Now that we have understanding of UX from a delivery context, we can quickly discuss how to prep for the involvement of UX. This could be done by asking some primer questions at the preliminary stages of customer engagement that will better allow for design work to begin in an efficient and manageable manner. These might include:

• What problem is the business trying to solve and how are they currently proposing to go about doing this?

• What changes are they expecting in current customer behaviour? What do they intend to do to get to this point?

• Who are their current customers/users? Who else are they looking to get as customers/users? What are the benefits the product is trying to impart to the users? What does the product do that other products don't already do?
  
  Based on these preliminary questions we can begin an ideation session with the customer to then onboard design.

The design process in delivery heavy environments should not prescriptive and should be more organic, following a series of best practices and adapting them to best suit the project and business needs. The above exploration should serve as a starter to begin the brainstorming around how this can be done more creatively and effectively in time.

Learning and Teaching

One of the best parts of working on projects at different stages in their development means that the challenges and opportunities are varied and unique. I had the opportunity to provide a UX critique on an already existing product in order to stimulate discussion around ways in which the product could be further refined. For this I held a small workshop where I allowed the stakeholders to take a critical tour of their product in order to better understand it through the eyes of the users.

I re-colored elements of the application and restyled it to make it look different. I wanted them to feel as lost as a new user would be when they first encounter the product. I then had them provide me with reactions and insights based on what they were seeing/experiencing. This was eye opening for both them and me as we were both able to create new pain points and gain better understandings of use cases.

We then cumulatively sat down to brain storm ideas, where I explained basic UX concepts to them and guided them through current best practices in order to justify solutions.

Overall the session proved to be extremely helpful to them in order to better understand how to move forward, as well as to me to better understand how to actively engage and maintain stakeholder interest and buy-in.

Revisiting

After having worked on several banking products over the last year I thought I would finally be tasked with something new in a different realm. I guess karma has a way of always bringing you back to where new learnings can still be made and I was tasked with a new platform design for a back office banking product. The biggest challenge here was to get users to understand the interaction of several different elements that existed in their own vacuums. With a short creation cycle (10 days!) it was a design challenge that had to be addressed with an almost guerrilla approach.

There was no time for testing or preliminary research, however SME's were available to provide any context on use. As a designer this meant having to work based on a lot of assumptions that could only be validated indirectly. To solve for this, daily iterations were made for each element and validated frequently to ensure that all use cases were met as well as overall usability.

Connecting so many disparate elements would require the need to create a harmonized dashboard of sorts that provided a summary of each element that would allow the user at a glance to have an understanding of what was going on before delving deeper into each element.

Thankfully this approach allowed us to create a demo that was well received and served as a preliminary foundation for more work to be done when developing the final product.