Conversational UI and the Future of UI Design
What is a Conversational User Interface?
Technology is a tool used in our daily lives that helps us to fulfill tasks, gain knowledge, make money but most importantly it helps us to communicate. By communication I don’t only mean personal texts or phone calls but technology in the twenty-first century has allowed us to communicate with the interface itself. Now I know some people will try and disagree with this statement because the thought that comes to mind when talking about technology communicating with us, is that technology is going to take over and we’re all going to be sad and eventually our species will die out.
Nevertheless, we are communicating with our interfaces everyday. That interaction may not seem intrusive to our lives, but it is still there. A simple way of understanding this interaction is through the concept of “Ask — Answers”. Ask — Answers, simply refers to the user asking the interface a question and the interface responding with a number of answers, answers that are ultimately determined by artificial intelligence. Algorithms that programmers use to tailor responses.
However, this interaction does not describe a conversational User Interface.
So what actually is a conversational user interface?
“Conversational User Interface(CUI) is an interface that uses a back and forth conversation as the model for interaction. Human types or says something to a machine, and the machine responds back with actionable information in a conversational manner in text, voice or both ”(Meydad Marzan).
Thus instead of using the notion “ask-answers” CUI’s use the concept “Action-reaction,” where instead of asking a question and recieving a number of answers, the interface would ask you questions until they have found the exact answer you were looking for. Also the answers are not just activity feed but you could talk back. It would be like having a conversation with a friend. Consequently this interaction would make our lives faster and easier. However, there is no use in using the word ‘would’ in that sentence when a number of apps are already started to use this method.
Thus Action- reaction is not the future of CUI’s, It is the present.
In addition, the concept of “action- reaction” is a lot different from “ask-answers” because developers are trying to move away from deep learning algorithms and move more towards data based on a flow of content created by human editors. Conversational user interfaces has a lot to do with the phrase, machines exist to serve humans. Previously or even at the moment people are trying to learn how to use their interfaces. That is the exact concept CUI’s are trying to get rid of because instead of us trying to learn them, they should be adapted to know us.
What is the future of Conversational User Interfaces
The future of Conversational User Interfaces would be trying to find a way for interfaces to adapt to us, a way for them to become more human. However, although this is the main objective, humans need to create a space in their lives that would allow for this. Before using the internet became a norm, people were scared of it and before that, people were scared of fire.
I know that analogy escalated really quickly but the reality is that for interfaces to adapt to be more human, we need to accept them as part of our daily lives and not just separate entities.
In today's times using ones cellphone to text at a family gathering or a formal setting is becoming less of a problem because majority of the population understand there is a need for that device. However, one step further such as voice noting someone is harder to access in front of other people. This is not necessarily because the voice note entails private information but rather friction is caused when people see there is a difference between being called out of a conversation by another person and being called out of a conversation by a device that allows you to hear a person. The future of CUI’s tries to demolish that difference “to the point where the user can’t detect the difference, and will interact with either human agent or computer bot(a piece of software that runs inside a messaging app that can perform basic tasks) in roughly the same interaction paradigm.”(Chris Messina).
Also, the relationship between humans is based on relativity, the reason we are able to find out information from one another so quickly is because answers are given in relation to other knowledge, for example if you ask someone for directions, the directions they will give you will be relative to the knowledge they have of the place you have to find, relative to the knowledge they have of you (e.g. whether you’re walking or driving) and relative to your knowledge of the place you’re looking for. Thus relativity is becoming a characteristic that is seen in interfaces today, however it is limited to a specific subject. Consequently the future of CUI’s would have to make every ‘subject’ around the user relative to one another for it to develop a human-like quality.
In addition to relativity, the future of Conversational User Interface would have to result in the Interface growing by itself. By this I mean that the interface would have to continuously teach itself by finding things relative to each other for it to know more information.
This is seen in the movie Her, where the interface in the movie falls in love with the main character because ‘she’ (interface) has developed feelings through growing as an interface.
Eventually ‘she’ grows so much that ‘she’ falls in love with other humans and interfaces.
Thus the separation between humanity and other interfaces was demolished. However the reality of the future of CUI is trying to demolish the difference for humans not interfaces, but it could be a scary thought to imagine interfaces demolishing the difference too.
Furthermore, other than people feeling scared about the unknown (technology becoming human to an extent unheard of). People are scared because a lot of the information we know about technology becoming more human, comes from fictional movies where technology takes over. Now you’re about to think I’m crazy but to an extent that ideology is right, once interfaces become more human the need for “glossy advertising” or marketing any product in any way other that word of mouth will be abolished. When interfaces become more human we would want to be told about them in a way that we trust them before we get them, whereas the way advertising is done today, creates a sense or interest but also a sense of doubt. Thus when technology becomes more human it will demolish advertising. Also, by humanising apps into bots it will take away many jobs in the creations of apps because “building conversational bots costs less and happens faster than building and maintaining cross-platform apps”(Chris Messina).
What role does Interface design play in the future of Conversational User Interfaces?
The role of interface design is quite a prominent role because as said CUI’s have a lot to do with making interfaces more human. Interface designers in the twenty-first century have already been manipulating many platforms to make products/websites and apps more efficient and simple. Thus through design, designers are able to create a platform that would make the users feel a certain way towards an inanimate object by giving the object (in this case the interface) certain human qualities.
Thus Design is about “drawing connections between disparate subjects”(Emmet Connolly).
In the future of Conversational User Interface, Interface design would have to change the way people see bots. It would be the responsibility of the interface designers to not only focus on creating efficiency and simplicity but also to focus more on delight. Efficiency would be created by the bot itself and simplicity would be an irrelevant attribute because simplicity today is created to make the user journeys easier and to focus the attention of users on certain aspects. If the Future of CUI’s is to demolish the view of seeing CUI’s as a separate entity to our lives. Designers would not need to focus the attention of the user as it would have already been done without the user being aware of it. Thus trying to create delight would be a major factor for Interface designers as they would have to make people feel comfortable with technology becoming more human.
References
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iViiyjaaiyE
http://www.wired.com/2016/02/with-quartzs-app-you-dont-read-the-news-you-chat-with-it/
http://dangrover.com/blog/2014/12/01/chinese-mobile-app-ui-trends.html
https://uxdesign.cc/falling-for-the-wrong-gui-68f6bec5ff6d#.30q6hgawn
https://medium.com/intercom-inside/why-conversational-design-is-the-future-2c05f65aa68e#.os7bt2hcp
https://medium.com/chris-messina/2016-will-be-the-year-of-conversational-commerce-1586e85e3991#.ocgbwfvdq
https://www.producthunt.com/@chrismessina/collections/convcomm
http://alistapart.com/article/all-talk-and-no-buttons-the-conversational-ui
https://medium.com/chris-messina/2016-will-be-the-year-of-conversational-commerce-1586e85e3991#.ocgbwfvdq
https://blog.intercom.io/messaging-apps-just-getting-started/?utm_medium=article&utm_source=medium&utm_campaign=conversation
http://interconnected.org/home/2015/06/16/conversational_uis
