Introduction to conversational experiences
Conversational user experience (CUX) is a mode of interaction that's based on natural language. When humans interact with each other, they use conversation to communicate ideas, concepts, data, and other mutually relevant information. In a CUX, your customers interact with their devices, apps, and digital services the way they do with people, through voice, text, or chat that comes naturally.
Other types of interactions can force users to behave in ways that are meaningful to the system: to provide the expected syntax to a command line, for instance, or understand the information architecture of a graphical user interface. CUX turns the tables. Instead of users having to learn the system's "language," the system understands users' natural language—with its patterns of speech, colloquialisms, chit-chat, and even misspellings—so that it can respond appropriately.
Conversation is personal
There's more to developing a conversational experience than crafting dialogue. The question of what constitutes an appropriate response—and the choice of who gets to decide what's appropriate—are ethical concerns and fundamental to the agent design process. More than other modes of interaction, conversation is especially personal, ingrained with human qualities of emotion, agency, and personality. Conversational experiences that don't address these human traits risk being unsatisfying at best.
Take personality, for example. When a device, app, or service responds to user input, the user begins to assign a personality to it, even when the interaction isn't conversational. This phenomenon of assigning a personality is more pronounced when the user is communicating in their natural language, whether in text or speech. Our latest research shows that users become more attached to devices when they interact using natural language. It's therefore in the best interest of the CUX designer to consider the social and emotional implications of establishing a personal relationship between the user and the device, app, or service. CUX designers have a responsibility to honor the emotional state of the human on the other end of the conversation.
The power of being understood
When a CUX responds intelligently to natural language, it's not only signaling that it received a message or command, it's communicating that it comprehends the user's unique form of human expression. The user feels heard. Moreover, if the response includes emotional nuance that's relevant to the user's cues, the user not only feels heard, they feel understood. In demonstrating intelligence and empathy, CUX lays the groundwork for building a relationship of trust with every person who uses the system.
CUX can be multi-modal and employ text or voice, with or without visual, auditory, and touch-enabled components. Fundamentally, though, CUX is human language. It lets you harness the power of words to build trust and forge deep connections with your users.