A breakdown of the best practices for designing interactive conversations. These principles can be applied on a variety of voice user interface applications. Intended for UX designers interested in breaking into the voice design field.

1. The Future of Voice Design:
How You Can Get Started
@brookebhawkins
#ias17
#fovd

2. What is VUI Design?

3. SAMPLE EMMI CALL

4. Using digital tools that help
patients be more engaged in
their healthcare journey.
Emmi &
Healthcare
PREVENT
Outbound IVR calls – one time outreach.
Reminders about appointments, collect
data, transfers to schedule.
TRANSITION
Many engagements over time. Flag major
issues for follow-up. Save care teams
money and time.
MULTIMEDIA
Multimedia programs that explain health
conditions using imagery and audio.

5. VOICE ASSISTANTS
Siri, Cortana, Google Assistant, Alexa,
Jibo, Viv
Conversational interfaces and
the “future” of VUI design.
CHATBOTS
Facebook’s “M”, Slack’s Slackbot, Chatbot
Magazine, Voice and Non-Voice
Personal
Assistants

6. NOT VERY HUMAN
Can’t remember things about you over time or
have a relationship with you.
Everyone’s favorite nightmare.
INBOUND CALLS
You’ll call into the system to get sorted and
answered.
Inbound IVRs

7. Making robocalls more human,
helpful and engaging.
IVR Calls Cold-calling patients
throughout their day.
Interactions are highly
measurable.
Helpful passive voice with
no persona.
CONTEXT
PERSONA
MEASUREMENT
Content can be swapped
and relaunched.
ITERATIVE

8. Designing Conversations.

9. Designing
Conversations
Breaking down the phases of
design.
WHAT IS IT?
Help people achieve a task and find what
they’re looking for through a conversation.

10. DESIGN PROBLEM
Clients will present us with an issue - they
need to get their patients to do something.

12. LARGER PROBLEM
What is really keeping patients from taking
action? This is our real solution.

13. “Vaccines are dangerous to
my family.”
“I have no way to get to the
doctor for my visit.”
TRANSPORTATION STIGMA
“I didn’t realize that visit was
covered by my insurance.”
COST

14. RESEARCH PROCESS
Talk to patients, care providers, look at
online forums, look at success of past data,
all to inform designs.

15. “I know I need to make
changes, but it’s too much.”
“It’s hard to live my life
normally like I used to.”
DEPRESSION CONFUSION
“I just left the hospital for a
heart attack.”
LIFE STRESSORS

16. DESIGN PROCESS
Once we’ve done this work, the design
phase takes on 4 main steps.

17. 1. SCRIPTING
Put together insights from research and
conversations to turn the goal into a script.

19. “I’m calling on behalf of [your clinic name]”
vs “I’m calling on behalf of [your hospital name]”
BUILD TRUST

20. “We’re calling all our new Medicaid patients…”
“I’ll pass this information to your doctor to update
your records”
EXPLAIN WHY CALLING

21. “Getting a flu vaccine doesn’t just keep you
healthy, but everyone around you – especially kids
and people too sick to get the vaccine themselves.”
MAKE THE INCENTIVE CLEAR

22. Reduces cognitive load and makes things easier to
understand.
USE EASY LANGUAGE

23. Allow users to “barge in” or speak over us like you
would in a normal conversation.
ANTICIPATE SPEAKING TURNS

24. Add in responses like “good to know” or validate
when we’re not sure.
ACKNOWLEDGE RESPONSES

25. 2. MAPPING THE FLOW
Breaking down the conversation into user
flows, Excels, and audio files to share with
IVR developer.

28. 3. FINE TUNING
Tuning the conversation to sound “human”.
Designing input grammars, barge-in rules,
error messages, and more.

30. Filename Text Barge In? Grammars
question.wav Would you like to transfer
now?
No Yes: yes, yeah, okay
No: no, no way, never
I Don’t Know: I don’t
know, I’m not sure
Error Files:
error1.wav I’m sorry, what was that? Yes
error2.wav I’m sorry, press 1 or 2. Yes

31. Simple responses: yes, yeah, no, nope
Filler words: um….yes
Repeat responses: yes…yes
Question mimicry: yes I am, no I’m not
Different interpretation: more mucus, thicker mucus, no mucus
“ARE YOU COUGHING UP MORE OR THICKER MUCUS THAN YESTERDAY?”

32. Validate: “I’m sorry, I just want to check - you said…”
Reprompt: “I didn’t get that - please say yes or no”
Limit options: “You can say: yes, no, or I don’t know”
Leading phrasing: “Please give the month and year”
ACCOUNTING FOR ERRORS IN CONVERSATION LIKE A HUMAN WOULD

33. 4. AUDIO DESIGN
Working with and coaching voice talent to
record audio. Editing and batching audio to
fit flows.

34. Question
Inflection
Having an
Empathetic Tone
Getting the right take takes time:
Many Ways To Say
One Thing

35. TESTING AND REFINING
I test the call to be sure everything is
functioning as I’ve designed.

36. Research and Results.

37. Time to see if we reached our
intended goal.
The Data WHAT’S IN A GOAL?
Measuring against goals helps us learn and
make the best experiences we can.

38. “There must be 50 ways to test a
system…”
Testing
Methods
A/B TESTING
Putting call features head to head. What
wins moves ahead.
QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS
Looking at the numbers to see larger
trends and behaviors.
QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS
Listening to real accounts and asking
users how they felt.

39. Need it every year v. It’ll protect others
“Do you think you’ll get the flu vaccine this year?”

40. “Great…I’ll send you back to where you were.”
“It lost all of my trust”
“I realized she was a computer”
“It didn’t make any sense to me”

41. For some things, communicating
with a computer is better.
IVR is Better
SHARING HEALTH INFORMATION
Research shows patients are more likely to
share sensitive or embarrassing data.
PAYING CREDIT CARD BILLS
Automated systems can be annoying, but
they don’t judge.
HANDS-OFF EXPERIENCES
Multitasking just got a whole lot easier.

42. When users get started, they stick with it:

43. Your help is key!
What’s Next VUI DESIGN IS BROAD
IVR calls are one example – but this is a tip of
the iceberg.

44. EXPERIENCE DESIGN
All of these skills are broadly applicable to
designing conversations in general.

45. AR AND VR
Environments controlled by voice – the
world is your interface.

47. SKULLY AR-1
Iron Man’s helmet to keep motorcyclists
safe on the road.

49. USC’s Ellie
Virtual therapy that scans your body
language and responds appropriately.

50. WE NEED YOU!
You have the skills you need to design the
future of voice interfaces.

51. Questions?

52. I’m available for questions and I
love making new design friends.
Contact
Info
Twitter
@brookebhawkins
Email
hawkinsbro@gmail.com
Website:
brookehawkins.com