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Thoughts on Conversational Software

Thoughts on Conversational Software

Starting with Doug Engelbart's Mother of all Demos in 1968, we've been on a technological tear for the last 50 years. However, the world and context of Engelbart, and the needs and opportunities for technology, were drastically different from today's. So while we continue to build out and enhance the roadmap set in the days of the Cold War, conversational software opens up and presents new ways to weave technology into our lives in ways that are both diffuse and profound, and meet the user — us humans — where we are, rather than asking us to modify ourselves to fit technology.

Chris Messina

April 14, 2016
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Transcript

  1. • What are we doing here? • Relevant moments in

    computing history • The Year of Conversational Commerce • So here we are • What we are doing here This talk is pre-conversational
  2. • Graphical “Windows” UI • Window Resizing and Layering •

    Hyperlinks • Hypermedia • WYSIWYG Word Processing • Contextual Help • Keyword Search • Video calling • Slideshows • Collaborative Document Editing • Version Control • Remote Procedure Calls • Dynamic File Linking • Distribute Client-Server Architecture • Shared Databases Video: SRI International; Text source: Chris Cox
  3. Utilizing chat, messaging, or other natural language interfaces (i.e. voice)

    to interact with people, brands, or services and bots that heretofore have had no real place in the bidirectional, asynchronous messaging context.
  4. 3,500 Q4 '11 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3

    Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 0 500 1,000 1,500 2,000 2,500 3,000 MESSAGING APPS HAVE SURPASSED SOCIAL NETWORKS Monthly active users for top 4 social networks and messaging apps Big 4 Messaging Apps Big 4 Social Networking Apps Millions BI INTELLIGENCE Source: Companies, Bi Intelligence
  5. “Alexa, ask Uber to request a ride.” “Alexa, ask Uber

    to request an UberX.” “Alexa, ask Uber where’s my ride?”
  6. • Focus less on “acquiring users” in conversational contexts, and

    more on enriching the relationships you’ve earned
  7. • Focus less on “acquiring users” in conversational contexts, and

    more on enriching the relationships you’ve earned • Make it easy to share great experiences and content with your customers’ friends — create content that's screenshot-worthy!
  8. • Focus less on “acquiring users” in conversational contexts, and

    more on enriching the relationships you’ve earned • Make it easy to share great experiences and content with your customers’ friends — create content that's screenshot-worthy! • Hand off to web or native apps when it serves the customer’s needs; but don’t drop them in the middle of nowhere: use deep linking to orient and help them complete their task
  9. • “Bot” is a shorthand for an interaction paradigm that

    is superficially conversational but is augmented and/or facilitated by: • speed, • persistence (identity + cross-device syncing over the cloud), • trust-based operations (payments), • and API integrations