Have you ever heard of a conversation designer as a job role? Me neither, that is until last week. I stumbled across one totally by accident when browsing through the proverbial corridors of LinkedIn.

I came across a video by @Kane Simms - (a Voice AI, conversational AI and NLP expert) where he talked about a new tool by Voiceflow that would help conversation designers.

Check out the video if you’re curious. Great video by the way!

I thought the tool sounded interesting but… “What on earth was a Conversation Designer?” So I asked my dear friend google: What is a conversation designer?

As always, google did not fail to deliver. I came across this article by @Michelle Parayll called “So what does a conversation designer do? A no-nonsense look at the job role” which explained everything.

The more I read, the more my intrigue grew. Let me tell you what I found. 

So what exactly is it?

First of all the official definition is

“A Conversation Designer is responsible for designing the user experience of a virtual assistant. They ensure that the virtual assistant is conversationally engaging, impactful for the end-user, and matches the voice of the brand. They translate the brand’s business requirements into natural dialogue flows backed up by UX research and good design practices.”

It’s a role that combines different skills or disciplines: UX Design, Copywriting, Product Design and AI Training and Linguistics in order to train company chatbots or virtual assistants as they’re sometimes called (even AI’s like fancy job titles 😎).

I’ve had my fair share of chatbot experiences, some of which have been less than optimal but when chatbots work well, they are so useful for both businesses and customers. For businesses, it means that they can save time and answer common questions or carry out common task requests from customers quickly and efficiently whilst saving their customer service staff for more complex problems that cannot (yet) be handled by chatbots. For customers, it means less time waiting in a call queue for simple information. 

Chatbots are getting more and more sophisticated though. The most impressive one I’ve seen so far is Chat GPT by open.ai. It answers your question like that knowledgeable friend that knows almost everything and it provides pretty elaborate answers.

The role of a Conversation Designer is one I think is going to become more and more in demand in future as more businesses incorporate AI to improve their customer experience. 

How does one become a conversation designer?

I came across a post on medium by Cathy Pearl who outlined a few steps to take in becoming a conversation designer. Here are some of the tips she shared:

* Listen to podcasts and watch talks that will help you gain knowledge in the field.

* Read relevant books and articles.

* Study best practices e.g. Google’s  conversation design guidelines.

* Follow conversational designers on social media (Twitter and others)

* Attend conferences and meet-ups - in person and/or online.

* Practice your newfound skill by creating UX mockups of sample dialogues

* Build a working prototype (even without coding) by using tools like Voiceflow or Botsociety.

* Get people to test out your chatbot and help you point out areas to refine.

* Build a portfolio to show your knowledge and thought process by including things like sample dialogues, conversational flows, videos or screen recordings of your prototypes. Don’t forget to include a few lines of explanation when showing each of these.

How does one find a Conversation Designer job?

I came across another medium post about how to find a job in this intriguing field by @Maaike Groenewege from Convocat. Apparently, you won’t see many jobs advertised for “Conversational Designers” because many companies do not realise there is a name for this profession. I can attest to this. I checked for the role of “Conversational Designer” on a popular job site in the UK and only found one!

You’ll often find the jobs for conversation designers hidden away in job titles for similar terms such as ‘chatbot builder’, ‘content specialist’, ‘UX Writer’, ‘customer journey expert’, ‘copywriter’ and ‘writer for chatbots’. 

What does progression look like?

A question I would like to ask you, my readers, and the wider internet about this job, is… What does job progression in this role look like? Managing a team? Building a company offering this as a service? Expanding into other AI tools? If you know, comment below.

Why am I talking about this?

I’m a startup co-founder at @Pathfound, an edtech company which helps African Highschoolers learn more about careers and make more informed decisions. This role and other AI-related roles are roles that I think would be important and in demand, worldwide, in the very near future. I want to draw attention to it so that young people considering what careers to take on may consider interesting roles like these. Follow @Pathfound to get updates and join in when we’re open to the public.

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About the author

Hi 👋, I'm Ore Apampa. I am an entrepreneur and voiceover artist based in the UK but I do love to travel so I'm not always there. I share stories about my experience being a voiceover artist whilst doing a PhD and being a startup co-founder at Pathfound - a career edtech company. I'm hoping sharing the things I learn on my journey will help other people a few steps behind me on their journeys. Subscribe to my newsletter - Ore's Gist here or on Linkedin to be notified when I post something new.

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