Writers of Silicon Valley is a UX writing podcast featuring interviews with content strategists and UX writers from around the world.The UX Writers Collective is proud to host transcripts for every episode.
Hillary Black is VP of Strategy & Conversation Design at Black Ops where they’ve created multiple chatbots for clients in the insurance, finance, and retail industries.
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Patrick:
You’re certainly one of the people at the forefront of that movement, which is why I’m really excited to talk to you about it. I just think there’s a lot of talk about you need to get into conversational design as a writer, you need to understand what’s happening. But there are very few people actually doing it.
So, it’s good to talk to someone who’s actually in the midst of it and in the weeds, because I think, and maybe you can comment on this, it seems to me like there’s a danger of it becoming… almost being seen as a fad, when really, it’s not. This is an actual serious change.
I’d be interested to hear your perspective on that, because I talk to people sometimes, and they say, “Chat bots, it’s just the flavour of the month,” or, “Voice design, it’s just the flavour of the month. You don’t really need to worry about it too much.” What do you think about that? I mean, obviously you disagree with that because you’re running a business based on building chat bots, but when it comes to that sort of perspective, what do you think about that sort of take?
Hillary:
Yeah. I mean, people definitely say that, but people said the exact same thing about social media. People said the exact same thing about community managers and social media managers, and every new social platform that comes out, people said the exact same thing that you’re saying. How do you measure this? How do you prove it? It’s just a fad. And so I explain this to people a lot, that I was in the exact same position when I first started my career in social media. I was one of the first people doing community management, and so I was very familiar with people saying these sorts of comments all the time, whether it be my family, potential employers, or just anyone that I knew.
I really think that we’re at a similar point right now, where especially with conversation designers, with chat bots, people are saying this is just a fad. But if it was a fad, why would it be around since Smarter Child, since Siri, since Alexa? Why would it be on Facebook Messenger for two years? Programmes are seeing really great performance. Right now, we do still have that early mover advantage, however, it’s the same thing that eventually everyone jumped on board with social media. I think we’re going to see the exact same thing with chat bots.
Patrick:
Yeah. I think one of the reasons people say it’s a fad is because they look at a crappy chat bot that hasn’t been designed well and doesn’t solve a problem, and they think, “Well, this is stupid.” And they’re right. There are lots of bots that are stupid. But there are lots more that are actually useful and interesting and doing something cool. That’s the same with any new technology. There’s always going to be a lot of crap at the start, at least.
Hillary:
Yeah, exactly. I think too that the expectations when chat bots first came out were super high, and it was definitely a struggle between people expecting that they would be super smart and be able to do everything and know everything, and AI isn’t there yet. I think that we will get there eventually, but right now, we still have to have humans involved. We still hav
