Why your next product should include a conversational Artificial Intelligence
By: Max Masure
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Design, UX

We learned to use Graphic User Interfaces because we had to, in order to give orders to the machine. We learned the machine’s language. What if we actually make the machine learn our language? I mean real language with sentences and intention, understanding, empathy even.

“The Fly” movie shows Seth Brundle having some chat conversations with his computer. He actually asks questions to the machine which will answer to him. Like a chat. The way he interacts with it seems obvious and easy but until recently, it was only science-fiction. Having a computer understanding a human sentence question requires a lot of work. Luckily, it is finally close to our present, even more advanced maybe, where Artificial Intelligence can give us the feeling that they have empathy. And empathy is what makes our brain happy.

“The Fly” movie: the conversational interaction with the machine

Make me feel something

Using the app Slack for a while now, I can tell you that I love Slack bot. I feel like he understands me. For example, when I post a Dropbox link on the app, he is so intelligent that he asks me if he should grab the document itself from my Dropbox and upload it on Slack. I can either answer “Yes”, “Not this time”, “Never”. When I chose “Not this time”, he answered me a full sentence that confronted me that he understood me: “OK, I won’t import this Dropbox file, but I will remember to ash you again next time.” I love you Slack bot ❤

Slackbot answers me using a full clear sentence of his intentions — I felt so well understood!

Really, that’s how strong relationships with computer could and should be. They are our assistants 24/7. As a product designer, my goal is to build apps or services the user can emotionally rely on. That means building this trusted relationship, including emotions.

Add granularity in the emotions

I like using movies as examples of Artificial Intelligence and User Interface as they are spaces where designers can go a bit further on their imagination, not depending so much on feasibility as we do in the real world.

On “Interstellar“, Cooper talks with the robot T.A.R.S. to get information and asks him to do some actions. But also, and that’s the most important thing here, he can modify the humor and trust settings. This is really strong Artificial Intelligence there. Empathy, emotion, humor that can be in different degrees to create a more plausible AI.

Interstellar T.A.R.S. has humor and trust settings

[Sci-fi movie nerd digression: I have to forget the fact that the shape of this robot makes no sense at all to me (seems so instable and could get stuck in so many situations!) and that its screen is showing stupid lines of codes instead of something else that could be, let’s say, useful. Adam Savage from Mythbuster seems to actually find the shape genius on this Youtube video (he still says the main issue is the stability/balance though haha) . Oh and this awesome article about the designs and sets for Interstellar: the part about how they built the Tesseract totally blew my mind! Sorry for the sci-fi movie nerd digression.]

Show me you care about me

Let’s go back to our subject: interacting with Artificial Intelligence. Remember the computer HAL talking in “2001: A Space Odyssey“? That’s what I felt using Lark app for the past few weeks. Lark, the Artificial Intelligence, is typing me some interesting facts about my health and I am really happy to start a conversation with him. I can even see the 3 dots when he is typing, giving me the feeling that there is actually a soul typing a text for me. Yes, I feel like someone is interacting with me, maybe even care about me and my health, and my human brain is really really happy.

Lark app where I really feel the AI is typing to me

Same feeling for the Artificial Intelligence used for the scheduling meetings tools Amy. Amy was really nice with me when I told her I was not available on the first days she suggested. (If you want to learn more about Amy, I interviewed Dennis Mortensen, founder of x.ai on the podcast Daily Hunt podcast.)

Make me fall in love

So when you think about your new product or service, try to have this AI aspect in your mind. How your users will interact with your app or service? How can you trigger the emotions you want from your users? How can you create the trusted relationship the user needs in order to fall in love with your product?

If you did not watch the movie “Her“, now would be the best time as this is not so a science-fiction scenario after all. The more we rely on conversational Artificial Intelligence, the better they will be designed (not the UI only but more the overall experience). Designed by us. By you. By me.

Or maybe… am I actually an AI without knowing it? *creepy Twilight Zone music*

This article was included on the issue#3 my curated publication “Design for startups“.

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“Design for startups” is my curated publication that helps you design when you are not a designer. Tips, tools and interesting articles for startups.

Originally published at www.sophiemasure.com.