Approach

It’s late 2016. Many people say conversational UI is the future of web interface. IM apps, chatbots, text-based UIs or emojis probably have never been more popular. Some might say it’s just another design fad or that text-based interfaces aren’t anything new, but frankly — let’s admit it — with the advent of iPhone Messages, Slack or Facebook Messenger the way we exchange information changed irreversibly. Text messages have became extremely natural way of communicating these days.

So naturally, when a chance arose for The Rectangles to work on a conversational website for one of our clients, we didn’t hesitate a single second.

Project objectives

Our main tasks in this projects:

• Design a complete set of conversational UI assets
• Create a conversation script
• Handle most common types of conversational randomness
• Convey the brand’s character (also by using company’s brand hero
• Raise user (interlocutor) curiosity and liking
• Display the company web development skills

I’ll show you how we did it step by step, but first…

A bit of theory

Let’s start with the basics. I think sometimes it’s important to make a step back for a short while before diving into more complex matters. In this case it really helped us. Believe it or not, but reading through all those fundamental definitions opened our eyes on a few creative solutions and boosted the entire ideation process.

And I think you shouldn’t skip this part too.

Consulting

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The principles of communication

There are hundreds of definitions explaining communication. The one below is my hybrid version of a few I found.

The messages (communication in general) can be verbal or non-verbal.

The most common verbal communication tool is language,which is a set of symbols used to exchange information in the form of words that can be transformed into meanings.

Examples: Hello; Thank you; You look great today Non-verbal, by contrast, refers to any type of communication different from words. It can be gestures, facial expressions, tone of voice, but also actions or symbols which have a common social meaning.

Communication is a process where all the aspects affect one another. It means that communication is holistic and that the entire process creates a system in which all the elements (all the messages) work together for the common good.

These messages are functional which means we use them to obtain desired effects, but also adaptive — meaning that, depending on the situation, they can be modified and adjusted in order to achieve better results.

Finally, the language we use to communicate is based on communication code, which is a set of principles and meanings. They create the base for interpretation. This communication codes are also called rules; there are two types of them:

1. Constitutive rules: referring to the sense and the meaning of particular words, and how we should interpret them. Also, they tell us how to understand a message in a particular context.
2. Normative rules: helping to determine a proper reaction based on a given message interpretation. In other words, they tell us what we should and what we should not do (say) in a particular situation.

The principles of communication

There are hundreds of definitions explaining communication. The one below is my hybrid version of a few I found.

Description of an article

Approach

It’s late 2016. Many people say conversational UI is the future of web interface. IM apps, chatbots, text-based UIs or emojis probably have never been more popular. Some might say it’s just another design fad or that text-based interfaces aren’t anything new, but frankly — let’s admit it — with the advent of iPhone Messages, Slack or Facebook Messenger the way we exchange information changed irreversibly. Text messages have became extremely natural way of communicating these days.

So naturally, when a chance arose for The Rectangles to work on a conversational website for one of our clients, we didn’t hesitate a single second.