By Phil Hamlett, Director of the School of Graphic Design at the Academy of Art University. Prior to joining the Academy, Phil led design studios on both coasts, creating award-winning work for clients large and small. He is a past president of the AIGA San Francisco chapter and a former AIGA national board member. More on Phil and his career, below.
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Alexa Show Combines GUI And Conversational Capabilities
As per design writer Marty Neumeier, “a brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or company” (The Brand Gap, 2003). What constitutes a brand has changed over time, but along the way most brand attributes have been primarily conveyed with visual cues.
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But what happens as those gut feelings are increasingly created by conversational experiences? And who exactly is responsible for those experiences? To paraphrase design strategist Nathan Shedroff: when one hops into a Chevrolet and barks at Alexa, who actually owns the brand experience and how is it conveyed? When Siri can’t get my coffee right, is it Apple’s fault or Nespresso’s?
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This represents a profound shift for designers. As the traditional architects and stewards of brand, designers have primarily utilized visual cues to formulate and instill that gut feeling. There are exceptions such as chimes, notices, jingles but most people tend to conceive of brands with their eyes vis-a-vis logos, colors, fonts, identity systems, and other elements that are largely the province of graphic designers.
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The advent of the web, and the graphical user interfaces (GUIs) that it required, broadened design’s scope and the creation of engaging and rewarding interactive experiences brought forth UX/UI and a requisite expansion of designers’ skill sets. The iPhone provided the means to take those experiences everywhere, throwing this all into overdrive and fueling the ascendance of digital product design.
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So of late, those (still largely visual) cues have primarily been conveyed through apps on mobile devices. The traditional means of brand articulation still exists; brown UPS trucks still contain drivers wearing brown shorts and brown socks who bring brown boxes festooned with brown labels, but my principal brand experience with UPS is now pounding on the “yo-where’s-my-freakin-box?” button on my phone.
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But now thanks to Siri I can actually yell “Yo! Where’s my freakin’ box?” rather than trying to find that particular button. But can I? Despite The Rock making it look easy in Apple commercials, many things stand in the way of the effortless Star Trek-inspired lives to which we aspire. Some of those barriers are technical and structural, but there are many opportunities for designers to lead the way.
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As companies compete to build and control voice platforms, and the assistants, avatars, and bots who inhabit them, the relationships they provide will primarily be understood as branding relationships.
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And designers are well-suited to skate to this particular puck.
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Designers’ traditional control of the brand and an innate understanding of its value will provide a familiar base of operations from which to work. Design thinking and its ability to drive the metamorphosis of what’s possible will have the opportunity to play out in a new arena, one in which designers already have domain expertise. Designers often characterize what they are creating as “brand voice.” Well now, that’s actually going to be the case.
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Designers’ contemporary skills have expanded to include the development of brand experiences and our existing understanding of things like UX/UI design heuristics will provide designers with key reference points for conversational development. Human-centered factors, usability, and communications are baked into our core, so augmenting the GUI-building skillset to account for CUI-oriented challenges should be a natural progression.
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Just as graphic design left the confines of the printed page, it will soon be breaking free of the screen as well. There will come a day when we wistfully reminisce about staring into little black rectangles and have a chuckle about pushing all the buttons found on them. It’s on designers to stretch and grow, once again expanding their skillset and applying design thinking prowess in a new setting.
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About the Author
Phil Hamlett is a design leader, educator, and first-generation digital native. Wherever he may be found — he unites creative minds to common purpose, utilizing the transformative power of design to cultivate good ideas. He is committed to helping people achieve their visions through the rigorous application of innovative education, design thinking, responsible leadership, and co-creation.
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Phil is currently the Director of the School of Graphic Design at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, a unique academic institution with a large international student body and robust online program. In this setting, he does everything from teaching classes to setting the strategic agenda for the School. His students emerge as advanced design practitioners and go on to acquire positions at leading studios and technology companies in the Bay Area and around the world.
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Prior to joining the Academy, Phil led design studios on both coasts, creating award-winning work for clients large and small. He is a past president of the AIGA San Francisco chapter and a former AIGA national board member. He is also an advisor to San Francisco Design Week, founder of Compostmodern and co-author of the Living Principles for Design — the means by which he guides the development of sustainable business practice within the design community. As a charter member of the Winterhouse Institute Founder’s Circle, he helps articulate the value of design education for social impact.
