VUX World

We’re talking to ex-Googlers, Konstantin Samoylov and Adam Banks, about their findings from conducting research on voice assistants at Google and their approach to building world-leading UX labs.

This episode is a whirlwind of insights, practical advice and engaging anecdotes that cover the width and breadth of user research and user behaviour in the voice first and voice assistant space. It’s littered with examples of user behaviour found when researching voice at Google and peppered with guidance on how to create world-class user research spaces.

Some of the things we discuss include:

• Findings from countless voice assistant studies at Google
• Real user behaviour in the on-boarding process
• User trust of voice assistants
• What people expect from voice assistants
• User mental models when using voice assistants
• The difference between replicating your app and designing for voice
• The difference between a voice assistant and a voice interface
• The difference between user expectations and reality
• How voice assistant responses can shape people’s expectations of the full functionality of the thing
• What makes a good UX lab
• How to design a user research space
• How voice will disrupt and challenge organisational structure
• Is there a place for advertising on voice assistants?
• Mistakes people make when seeking a voice presence (Hint: starting with ‘let’s create an Alexa Skill’ rather than ‘how will
• people interact with our brand via voice?’)
• The importance (or lack of) of speed in voice user interfaces?
• How to fit voice user research into a design sprint

Plus, for those of you watching on YouTube, we have a tour of the UX Lab in a Box!

Our Guests

Konstantin Samoylov and Adam Banks are world-leading user researchers and research lab creators, and founders of user research consultancy firm, UX Study.

The duo left Google in 2016 after pioneering studies in virtual assistants and voice, as well as designing and creating over 50 user research labs across the globe, and managing the entirety of Google’s global user research spaces.

While working as researchers and lab builders at Google, and showing companies their research spaces, plenty of companies used to ask Konstantin and Adam whether they can recommend a company to build them a similar lab. Upon realising that company doesn’t exist, they set about creating it!

UX Study designs and builds research and design spaces for companies, provides research consultancy services and training, as well as hires and sells its signature product, UX Lab in a Box.

UX Lab in a Box

The Lab in a Box, http://ux-study.com/products/lab-in-a-box/ is an audio and video recording, mixing and broadcasting unit designed specifically to help user researchers conduct reliable, consistent and speedy studies.

It converts any space into a user research lab in minutes and helps researchers focus on the most important aspect of their role - research!

It was born after the duo, in true researcher style, conducted user research on user researchers and found that 30% of a researchers time is spent fiddling with cables, setting up studies, editing video and generally faffing around doing things that aren’t research!

Konstantin Samoylov

Konstantin Samoylov is an award-winning user researcher. He has nearly 20 years’ experience in the field and has conducted over 1000 user research studies.

He was part of the team that pioneered voice at Google and was the first researcher to focus on voice dialogues and actions. By the time he left, just 2 years ago, most of the studies into user behaviour on voice assistants at Google were conducted by him.

Adam Banks

It’s likely that Adam Banks has more experience in creating user research spaces than anyone else on the planet. He designed, built and managed all of Google’s user research labs globally including the newly-opened ‘Userplex’ in San Francisco.

He’s created over 50 research and design spaces across the globe for Google, and also has vast experience in conducting user research himself.

Links

Visit the UX Study website

Follow UX Study on Twitter

Check out the UX Lab in a Box

Follow Kostantin on Twitter

Follow Adam on Twitter

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This week, Dustin and I are joined by Matt Hartman, partner at Betaworks, curator of the Hearing Voices newsletter and creator of the Wiffy Alexa Skill.

In this episode, we’re discussing:

• All about Betaworks
• A strategic vision for voice
• Changing user behaviour
• On-demand interfaces
• Friction and psychological friction
• How context influences your design interface
• The 2 types of companies that’ll get built on voice platforms
• Differences between GUI and VUI design
• Voice camp
• The Wiffy Alexa Skill
• Lessons learned building your first Alexa Skill
• Text message on-boarding
• Challenges in the voice space

Our Guest, Matt Hartman

Matt Hartman has been with Betaworks for the past 4 years and handles the investment side of the company. Matt spends his days with his ear to the ground, meeting company founders and entrepreneurs, searching for the next big investment opportunities.

Paying attention to trends in user behaviour and searching for the next new wave of technology that will change the way people communicate has led Matt and Betaworks to focus on the voice space.

Matt has developed immense knowledge and passion for voice and is a true visionary. He totally gets the current state of play in the voice space and is a true design thinker. He has an entirely different and unique perspective on the voice scene: the voice ecosystem, voice strategy, user behaviour trends, challenges and the future of the industry.

Matt curates the Hearing Voices newsletter to share his reading with the rest of the voice space and created the Wiffy Alexa Skill, which lets you ask Alexa for the Wifi password. It’s one of the few Skills that receives the fabled Alexa Developer Reward.

Betaworks

Betaworks is a startup platform that builds products like bit.ly, Chartbeat and GIPHY. It invests in companies like Tumblr, Kickstarter and Medium and has recently turned its attention to audio and voice platforms such as Anchor, Breaker and Gimlet.

As part of voice camp in 2017, Betaworks invested in a host of voice-first companies including Jovo, who featured on episode 5 of the VUX World podcast, as well as Spoken Layer, Shine and John Done, which conversational AI guru, Jeff Smith (episode 4), was involved in.

Links

• Subscribe to the Hearing Voices newsletter
• Check out the Wiffy Alexa Skill
• Follow Matt on Twitter
• Visit Matt's website
• Matt's article: Interfaces on demand
• Matt's article: Lessons Learned Building my First Alexa Skill
• Follow Matt Hartman on Medium
• Find out more about Betaworks

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This week, we’re joined by the Mycroft AI team, and we’re getting deep into designing and developing on the open source alternative to Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.

If you’ve tried creating voice apps on platforms such as Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, then you’ll do doubt be familiar with their current limitations. Push notifications, monetisation and all-round flexibility generally leave plenty to be desired.

What if there was an alternative? A platform that really did let you create whatever you wanted. Something that'll let you monetise. Something completely open to being used in a way that you want to use it.

Well, that’s what the team at Mycroft AI have built.

What is Mycroft AI?

Mycroft AI is the world’s first open source voice assistant that runs anywhere. On desktop, mobile, smart speakers. In cars, fridges, and washing machines. You name it. You can put it where you like and do with it what you like as well.

One member of the Mycroft community has hooked the platform up to a webcam and created a facial recognition feature that uses a persons face instead of a wake word. When you look at the camera, the speaker wakes and is ready for you to speak to it!

As well as being open source and flexible, if you create something exceptional, then it could even become the default skill for that feature on the platform. That’s like you creating a really great weather skill on Alexa and Amazon using that as the default way to tell people the weather!

Plus, your personal data is kept totally private.

And Mycroft aren’t just creating cool software, they have a range of smart speakers as well. The Mark I speaker is on sale now and the Mark II is on Indiegogo right now.

Our Guests

Today, we’re joined by Joshua Montgomery, CEO; Steve Penrod, CTO; and Derick Schweppe, CDO to talk all things Mycroft AI.

We’re also joined again by co-host, Dustin Coates, and we’re getting into detail about:

• Where Mycroft AI came from and the company’s vision for voice and AI
• The differences between Mycroft and the other players such as Alexa and Google Assistant
• The value of an open source voice assistant
• About the platform (how it works, how you can get up and running)
• About the range of smart speakers
• Privacy and security
• The Mycroft community and what people are building
• Incentives and reasons to develop on Mycroft AI
• Dev Chops with Dustin: a new feature where Dustin gets into the dev details of the Mycroft platform
• Voice design techniques and processes
• The future of voice

Links

• Visit the Mycroft website
• Get Mycroft for developers
• Mycroft Mark II on Indigogo
• Buy Mycroft Mark 1
• Mycroft on Youtube
• Mycroft on Twitter
• Mycroft community forum
• Mycroft chat

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, we’re joined by the Mycroft AI team, and we’re getting deep into designing and developing on the open source alternative to Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.

If you’ve tried creating voice apps on platforms such as Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, then you’ll do doubt be familiar with their current limitations. Push notifications, monetisation and all-round flexibility generally leave plenty to be desired.

What if there was an alternative? A platform that really did let you create whatever you wanted. Something that'll let you monetise. Something completely open to being used in a way that you want to use it.

Well, that’s what the team at Mycroft AI have built.

What is Mycroft AI?

Mycroft AI is the world’s first open source voice assistant that runs anywhere. On desktop, mobile, smart speakers. In cars, fridges, and washing machines. You name it. You can put it where you like and do with it what you like as well.

One member of the Mycroft community has hooked the platform up to a webcam and created a facial recognition feature that uses a persons face instead of a wake word. When you look at the camera, the speaker wakes and is ready for you to speak to it!

As well as being open source and flexible, if you create something exceptional, then it could even become the default skill for that feature on the platform. That’s like you creating a really great weather skill on Alexa and Amazon using that as the default way to tell people the weather!

Plus, your personal data is kept totally private.

And Mycroft aren’t just creating cool software, they have a range of smart speakers as well. The Mark I speaker is on sale now and the Mark II is on Indiegogo right now.

Our Guests

Today, we’re joined by Joshua Montgomery, CEO; Steve Penrod, CTO; and Derick Schweppe, CDO to talk all things Mycroft AI.

We’re also joined again by co-host, Dustin Coates, and we’re getting into detail about:

• Where Mycroft AI came from and the company’s vision for voice and AI
• The differences between Mycroft and the other players such as Alexa and Google Assistant
• The value of an open source voice assistant
• About the platform (how it works, how you can get up and running)
• About the range of smart speakers
• Privacy and security
• The Mycroft community and what people are building
• Incentives and reasons to develop on Mycroft AI
• Dev Chops with Dustin: a new feature where Dustin gets into the dev details of the Mycroft platform
• Voice design techniques and processes
• The future of voice

Links

• Visit the Mycroft website
• Get Mycroft for developers
• Mycroft Mark II on Indigogo
• Buy Mycroft Mark 1
• Mycroft on Youtube
• Mycroft on Twitter
• Mycroft community forum
• Mycroft chat

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

But first, let's welcome co-host; Dustin Coates

We're joined in this episode by our new co-host, Dustin Coates. Dustin is the author of Voice Applications for Alexa and Google Assistant and has been involved in the voice scene since day 1. With extensive experience in software engineering, deep knowledge of Alexa and Google Assistant development and an immense passion for voice, Dustin brings a new perspective and different angles of questioning that, not only technical folk, but non-tech people will appreciate as well.

One of the challenges with new technology platforms is that you typically need to be able to speak the lingo to develop on them. As the internet has progressed, there are what seems like a million dev languages that you'd need to be able to code in to be able to create your website or app.

It wasn’t until relatively recently that tools cropped up to allow designers and total beginners to build on the web. Tools like Wordpress, Weebly and Squarespace have made it easy for anyone to create a presence online.

The great thing about having that history of the web is that we can learn from the past and apply the things that work well to new industries and technology. That’s exactly what Vasili has done through the creation of Storyline. It's the Weebly of voice.

It has a drag and drop interface and a user friendly workflow that will allow anyone to create an Alexa Skill without needing to code a single line.

It will let more technical folk do further work if they’d like to, such as using an API integration to interrogate data, but for the less technical folk out there, what you get ‘out the box’ is more than enough to build a well-rounded Skill.

In fact, testament to how much flexibility is baked into the tool is the recent announcement of the Amazon Alexa Skills Challenge: Kids winner, Kids Court, was created in Storyline.

In this episode, we get into detail about:

• What Storyline is, how it works and how to get up and running
• Testing and publishing Skills
• How to make your Skill more discoverable
• The Storyline community
• Future features and the roadmap
• The challenges facing developers and solutions to solving them
• Vasili’s vision for where the voice space is heading
• Advice for beginner Skill-builders and voice heads

Our guest

Vasili Shynkarenka is the founder and CEO of Storyline. After creating and selling an agency that specialised in creating conversational experiences for brands, Vasili turned his attention to focus on Storyline.

Vasili is madly passionate about voice and has immense experience in the field. He’s super-keen for all kinds of people to get involved in creating voice experiences, no matter what their skill level. His vision for the future of smart speakers and his knowledge of creating voice experiences are inspirational.

This episode is packed with insights and tips and tricks to help people of all skill levels create an Alexa Skill.

Links

• Try Storyline 
• Check out Storyline on Youtube
• Join the Storyline community on Facebook 
• Read Vasili's article 'What I Learned from 5000 Reviews of Top 5 Alexa Skills' on Medium
• Check out Vasili on Medium

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

But first, let's welcome co-host; Dustin Coates

We're joined in this episode by our new co-host, Dustin Coates. Dustin is the author of Voice Applications for Alexa and Google Assistant and has been involved in the voice scene since day 1. With extensive experience in software engineering, deep knowledge of Alexa and Google Assistant development and an immense passion for voice, Dustin brings a new perspective and different angles of questioning that, not only technical folk, but non-tech people will appreciate as well.

One of the challenges with new technology platforms is that you typically need to be able to speak the lingo to develop on them. As the internet has progressed, there are what seems like a million dev languages that you'd need to be able to code in to be able to create your website or app.

It wasn’t until relatively recently that tools cropped up to allow designers and total beginners to build on the web. Tools like Wordpress, Weebly and Squarespace have made it easy for anyone to create a presence online.

The great thing about having that history of the web is that we can learn from the past and apply the things that work well to new industries and technology. That’s exactly what Vasili has done through the creation of Storyline. It's the Weebly of voice.

It has a drag and drop interface and a user friendly workflow that will allow anyone to create an Alexa Skill without needing to code a single line.

It will let more technical folk do further work if they’d like to, such as using an API integration to interrogate data, but for the less technical folk out there, what you get ‘out the box’ is more than enough to build a well-rounded Skill.

In fact, testament to how much flexibility is baked into the tool is the recent announcement of the Amazon Alexa Skills Challenge: Kids winner, Kids Court, was created in Storyline.

In this episode, we get into detail about:

• What Storyline is, how it works and how to get up and running
• Testing and publishing Skills
• How to make your Skill more discoverable
• The Storyline community
• Future features and the roadmap
• The challenges facing developers and solutions to solving them
• Vasili’s vision for where the voice space is heading
• Advice for beginner Skill-builders and voice heads

Our guest

Vasili Shynkarenka is the founder and CEO of Storyline. After creating and selling an agency that specialised in creating conversational experiences for brands, Vasili turned his attention to focus on Storyline.

Vasili is madly passionate about voice and has immense experience in the field. He’s super-keen for all kinds of people to get involved in creating voice experiences, no matter what their skill level. His vision for the future of smart speakers and his knowledge of creating voice experiences are inspirational.

This episode is packed with insights and tips and tricks to help people of all skill levels create an Alexa Skill.

Links

• Try Storyline 
• Check out Storyline on Youtube
• Join the Storyline community on Facebook 
• Read Vasili's article 'What I Learned from 5000 Reviews of Top 5 Alexa Skills' on Medium
• Check out Vasili on Medium

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Find out all about the Jovo framework that lets you create Alexa Skills and Google Assistant apps at the same time, using the same code!

You know how you always need to write platform-specific code for everything? One lot of code for your iOS app, another load for Android and more for Windows (if you even bother). Well, the same challenges exist today when creating voice apps. Well, those challenges did exist, until Jovo came along.

With the Jovo framework, you can create an Alexa Skill and a Google Assistant app all from the same lot of code. It's part of Jovo's bigger mission to enable you to create multi-modal experiences with ease and to join together the sporadic tech outlets to create a unified experience across all devices and platforms.

Our Guest

Jan König is one of the co-founders of Jovo and we're speaking to him today about all things cross-platform voice development. We'll hear from Jan about things like:

• what 'multi-modal' actually means
• features of the Jovo framework
• the Jovo community and Jovo Studios
• the differences between developing for Alexa and Google Assistant
• the challenges of developing voice experiences
• the skills needed for building Skills
• designer and developer relationships in the voice world
• testing voice apps
• Jovo 1.0 and the future of Jovo and

Links

• Follow Jan on Twitter
• Follow Jovo on Twitter
• Visit the Jovo website
• Jovo on Github
• Jovo Slack channel
• Follow Jan on Medium

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Find out all about the Jovo framework that lets you create Alexa Skills and Google Assistant apps at the same time, using the same code!

You know how you always need to write platform-specific code for everything? One lot of code for your iOS app, another load for Android and more for Windows (if you even bother). Well, the same challenges exist today when creating voice apps. Well, those challenges did exist, until Jovo came along.

With the Jovo framework, you can create an Alexa Skill and a Google Assistant app all from the same lot of code. It's part of Jovo's bigger mission to enable you to create multi-modal experiences with ease and to join together the sporadic tech outlets to create a unified experience across all devices and platforms.

Our Guest

Jan König is one of the co-founders of Jovo and we're speaking to him today about all things cross-platform voice development. We'll hear from Jan about things like:

• what 'multi-modal' actually means
• features of the Jovo framework
• the Jovo community and Jovo Studios
• the differences between developing for Alexa and Google Assistant
• the challenges of developing voice experiences
• the skills needed for building Skills
• designer and developer relationships in the voice world
• testing voice apps
• Jovo 1.0 and the future of Jovo and

Links

• Follow Jan on Twitter
• Follow Jovo on Twitter
• Visit the Jovo website
• Jovo on Github
• Jovo Slack channel
• Follow Jan on Medium

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Conversational AI crops up constantly in conversations about voice, but what actually is it? How the heck does it work? And how can you use it? We speak to Jeff Smith to find out.

In this episode, we cover:

• An overview of conversational AI - what it is and how it works
• The role of voice in conversational AI
• How and why brands should consider using it
• How you can get started with machine learning and conversational AI
• Challenges and opportunities such as the state of analytics and security

At the foot of the show, I said that this was:

“One of the most interesting conversations I’ve ever had in my life.”

And I wasn’t lying.

Getting to grips with Conversational AI

If you’re not familiar with the concepts of conversational AI, this episode will give you a great introduction.

If you are familiar and work in the industry, Jeff drops some great nuggets and learnings from his extensive experience.

And if you’re interested in this from a branding perspective, by the end of this episode, you’ll have a full understanding of the contexts and environments where it’s useful.

Our Guest

Jeff Smith, author of Reactive Machine Learning Systems, has bags of experience in the area of machine learning and conversational AI. He’s built a series of AIs, including Amy and Andrew at X.ai (what a cool domain!). That’s an AI Personal Assistant that helps people schedule meetings.

Jeff now works with IPsoft and manages the conversational AI team who’re building Amelia. Amelia, as you’ll find out in the show, is an extremely sophisticated AI that can perform many human tasks, increasing productivity and business efficiencies.

Links

• Jeff's book, Reactive Machine Learning Systems
• Jeff's talks and content on Reactive Machine Learning
• Follow Jeff on Twitter
• IPsoft website where you can check out Amelia
• Follow IPsoft on Twitter
• Jeff's article, 'Better conversations with machines'
• Check out Jeff on Medium
• Hear Donald Trump on Lyrebird

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In this episode, we’re going to show you how you can build an Alexa Skill from right within Wordpress.

Wordpress powers almost a third of the internet and now millions of websites running Wordpress can all have a presence on voice. It’s all thanks to VoiceWP, the Wordpress plugin that lets you build an Alexa Skill from within the most widely adopted CMS on the planet.

You can create Flash Briefings with ease and even have Alexa read the content of your website. We all know about audio books, but this could be the first opportunity to have your website content turned into audio form and read aloud as soon as its published, without you having to go through much effort at all. It’s super simple to set up.

Our Guest

VoiceWP was built by our guest, Tom Harrigan, Partner and VP of Strategic Technology at Alley Interactive, a full service digital agency that specialises in helping publishers succeed online. We speak to Tom about VoiceWP, which is allowing brands such as People.com and Dow Jones’ Moneyish.com build Alexa Skills and establish a presence on voice with ease.

And you can use it too, because it’s free and super-simple to set up.

So, if you use Wordpress as your CMS and you’re interested in testing the waters in voice, or if you’re looking for a starting point Alexa Skill building, then this episode is for you.

We’re speaking to Tom about:

• Where the idea for VoiceWP came from and how it was built
• What is the plugin all about and what features does it have
• Who’s using it right now and who is it targeted at
• How can you get up and running with the plugin and try it out for yourself
• What does the future look like and what’s coming up

Links

• Check out VoiceWP
• Download VoiceWP at Git Hub
• Follow Tom on Twitter
• Visit Tom's website
• Find out more about Alley Interactive

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