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Contents
Chatbot content needs to be user centered, task-oriented, and, above all, well-structured. Sounds familiar? It sure did to me when I switched from technical writing to conversation design.
In my talk, I will take you along on my own journey from technical writing into conversational design: what skills you need, the steps I took to get there, some examples of great and not so great bots, and some tips to get started on your own.
Takeaways
Gartner predicts that chatbots will power 85 percent of all customer service interactions by the year 2020. Yet, if you look at the state of chatbots right now, the majority of our experiences with them are still quite disappointing.
Contrary to popular belief, most problems with chatbots are not because of technology, but because of poor content design choices. WIth the advent of AI, chatbots rely heavily on natural language processing to link the right question to the right answer. And in order to do that properly, chatbot content needs to be user centered, task-oriented, and, above all, well-structured.
Sounds familiar? It sure did to me when I switched from technical writing to conversation design. But to my own surprise, I found that many of the principles that are well-known to us technical writers (single sourcing, topic based writing, content architecture, writing for re-use, minimalism), are still quite novel in the conversational industry.
So if you're a technical writer considering a move into an AI career, conversation designer might not only be the job you're looking for; you might actually have a headstart because of your techwriter mindset.
In my talk, I will take you along on my own journey from technical writing into conversational design: what skills you need, the steps I took to get there, some examples of great and not so great bots, and some tips to get started on your own.