In this post, we’ve put together a conversational design guide to help new designers start an exciting career in conversational AI. These resources will give you an understanding of how people interact with conversational interfaces and provide best practices for building effective conversational experiences.
The past few months have been particularly eventful for the conversation AI industry. We owe this new-found interest mostly to the Generative AI craze and Open AI’s GPT developments in particular.
According to Sam Altman, the founder of OpenAI, ChatGPT crossed the milestone of 1 million users just within five days of its launch. This explains the high expectations for conversational AI market growth as its size is predicted to reach $41.89 billion by 2030, which is a CAGR of 22% from 2022 to 2030.
So, if you’ve been thinking about joining the convo crowd or are already part of it, we’ve put together a list of useful resources that can help your conversation design career.
Conversation design might be a young field, but there are so many great people who want to make life easier for aspiring conversation designers. So, if you’re contemplating a career in conversation design or need a blueprint for your new career, start by reading these articles (also you can just go ahead and follow on social networks the amazing people who authored those pieces):
Suppose you read even one of the articles mentioned above. In that case, you’ll end up with many useful media and podcast recommendations from people who know a thing or two about conversation design. In case you’ve skipped this step, our conversational design guide lists some givsome podcasts and media covering voice tech and conversation design that you should bookmark:
Voicebot.ai
Founded by Bret Kinsella, Voicebot.ai is one of the industry’s most influential media and podcasts, offering the latest news and insights, industry analytics and research, and interviews with stellar podcast guests.
VUX World
Industry-leading podcast, content platform and consulting service founded by Kane Simms (who’s the Citizen Kane – pun intended – of the voice tech world, so you definitely want to follow him on social media.), VUX World covers various topics from the future of customer service to conversation design and voice interfaces to expert analysis and more.
This Week In Voice VIP
One of the top influencers in the voice industry, Bradley Metrock is the man behind many important projects, including the This Week In Voice podcast and Project Voice events. Bradley also personally crafts and curates the This Week In Voice newsletter that balances the deep industry analysis and challenging concepts with jokes, music, and gifs.
UX and UI design influencers
The conversation design and voice tech community is full of amazing bright people, who eagerly share their experiences and insights. Sadly, they all won’t fit in this conversational design guide, but we can tell you where to start. This, of course, doesn’t mean we prefer some over others. Bret Kinsella already did a great job and published a list of influencers in voice tech. So, here are some great people we think you should follow by category:
Conversation design, conversational UI, NLU
Conversation design career
Vision, insights and inspiration
By now you’re probably wondering where you can meet all these fantastic people we keep mentioning. In today’s digitally-dominated world, it’s easier than ever to mingle with like-minded people. Here are some options for voice tech enthusiasts:
Voice Lunch
The Voice Lunch team hosts regular virtual meetings where people can discuss all things voice – from industry trends to mindfulness.
Women in Voice
A warm and friendly community, Women in Voice is like Hogwarts for conversation designers: in their slack community help will always be given to those who ask for it. There are virtual meetups and summits, as well as offline events all over the world.
Convoclub
Founded by Maaike Groenewege, this is a “community for everything conversation design” with the most adorable tagline “Real people, real knowledge, real imposter syndrome :-)” At Convoclub you can share your knowledge and learnings on conversation design.
To help you design better chatbots, voice assistants and skills for them, there are guided courses as well as resources for self-paced education. Check out coursework from Conversation design institute, CareerFoundry, Amazon, LinkedIn, Jesús Martín, and Voxable.
If you like to figure things out on your own, there are entire libraries with resources curated by other conversation designers (we’ve already mentioned most of them):
Generative AI and ChatGPT
Our conversational design guide would not be complete without the groups and communities we think you should follow if you want ot stay in the loop of all things Generative AI and ChatGPT.
OpenAI
Sam Altman
Greg Brockman
Generative AI
Mckay Wrigley
Ray Villalobos
Marcelo Lewin
Brian Smith
Erik Brynjolfsson
This list will help you jumpstart your career in conversation design or, at least, save you precious time. You’re sure to build your own list over time – as we said, conversation design is a very dynamic field – and we’d love it if you shared it and tagged Tovie AI.
If you are looking for an easy to use tool to start building your first conversational bot, try Tovie AI’s free template for conversational design, created by our in-house UX designers with best world practices in mind. You can also get in touch with our team and leave your feedback. Good luck on your conversational design journey!