Designing for voice UI, the tech that talks the talk

Check out our new guide — we just launched! — with strategies and tips to help you design for this interface.

Fjord’s Baiju Shah recently wrote a story in which he described his seven-year-old son’s fascination with Google Home and the way the device — when responding to questions ranging from “What’s the square route of one billion?” to “Is my brother annoying?” — “surprised and delighted and seemed almost magical in its warmth and humor… more like a friend than a piece of technology.”

This is just one way in which voice UI differs from other interfaces, and impressive devices like Google Home and Amazon Echo have set extremely high expectations for what all voice interactions can, and should, be. People expect their questions answered and their orders obeyed, plus some knock-knock jokes and witty quips on the side, and they don’t want to fumble with buttons or screens to make it happen.

For designers, this interface introduces new, exciting opportunities — and new obstacles — so we crowdsourced our thinking and ideas at Fjord to create a comprehensive guide to designing for voice UI. From creating sequences and crafting a personality to conquering biases and building empathy, this guide offers the design community expert insights and explains how to think outside the screen to create a human-centered voice interface that will give Alexa a run for her money. (Let’s see what she has to say about that.)

Please check it out and let us know what you think!