Robots, pizza and a good conversation

I should confess that as the Director of the RED Lab, I am quite cynical about technology. It likely started in public school when my grade 6 science teacher had us thoroughly convinced that by the year 2000 we would all have rocket packs and robot housekeepers. Other than this and this, I’m still waiting. 

But recently I’ve caught myself having that little glimpse of hope and feeling that warm flush of anticipation - and it’s all related to the rapid convergence towards “Conversation as the UI.”

But I just learned how to use Sketch & InVision

Those of us who spend our free time thinking about user flow, feature discoverability and intuitive design may find this a little unsettling…nothing is more intuitive or requires less navigational dexterity than a simple sentence.

Text-based UIs are not new and in fact go back to the advent of the modern computer. However, there was a requirement to learn a specific language or set of cryptic terms in order to “tell the computer what to do.” Speaking to it normally was never an option. (Apologies to HAL 9000 if he’s listening.)

Today, voice-to-text is a commodity that is embedded in every smartphone keyboard and 3rd party interface. I find myself dictating most of my texts, short emails, calendar appointments and web queries on a regular basis because it mostly works and works well. The convenience more than compensates for the occasional inappropriate word replacement. 

This is where the buzz words of AI and machine learning have really stepped up in allowing for these incredible advancements in Natural Language Processing (NLP). Specifically, these technologies excel in complex, compound, and context-specific commands like “Manulife, please tell me how much coverage I have left for chiropractor appointments this year?” or “Manulife please transfer $150 tomorrow from my One account to Xavier.” 

But don’t throw out your design tools just yet; a new discipline is emerging for designing effective visual representations of this new conversational experience.

But I have a nice phone

To truly integrate technology into our everyday life means that the method of interacting with a service needs to be as fluid and flexible as we are throughout the day – be it in our kitchen making breakfast or in our car commuting to work, or going for a bike ride, or sitting alone in a noisy room.

Not all of those activities are conducive to grabbing your phone, opening an app and navigating menus. Many times you will need to be hands-free when you remember you need to pay a bill or confirm when you are eligible to schedule your next dentist recall appointment. 

In some instances, you will be moving from one situation into another - you could start the interaction with a voice conversation, then continue with typing and then back to voice all the while going about your day and completing your tasks seamlessly. This is why smart home assistants like Amazon Alexa and Google Home (soon available in Canada) have been selling off the shelves and companies are scrambling to start building integrations into those channels. (Check out this or this or this) 

More than just a good Pizza

Probably the best example I have seen of this multi-channel to single service implementation is Dominos Pizza Anyware: https://anyware.dominos.com  There is no longer the limitation of a single dedicated app or website. You can order your favourite Deluxe with extra cheese from ANY channel convenient to you at that time such as Facebook Messenger, Amazon Echo, Google Home, your watch, your car, a text or of course their app. All those channels give you the option of voice or typing and all allow you to do the same thing…order and pay for a pizza and then track its delivery progress through a simple conversation. (Hmmm is it lunch time yet?)

At the RED Lab we’re envisioning how we can apply this adaptable customer interaction perspective at Manulife – be it completing bank activities or making investment updates or following up on benefits claims - all in the context of a SINGLE conversation using the method that the CUSTOMER finds most convenient.