Going into 2022, we’re seeing practices and processes mature when it comes to building conversational experiences. But, there’s still room for improvement.

Building successful experiences starts with a strategy. And a strategy consists of a goal and a plan. What is your goal? Why are you building a conversational application? Maybe you are looking to automate your customer support so customers can get help 24/7/365. Or your brand wants to incorporate new technologies as part of their brand positioning. To reach your goal, you must create a plan and execute according to the plan.

A lot of aspects need to get planned out, no doubt. And a lot of best practices carry over from typical software development project planning. But some things are specific to conversational AI applications, whether they are chatbots or voicebots. We use a handy checklist to make sure that teams avoid these common pitfalls:

We need to understand user needs and wants, and their expectations. Context, for instance, is extremely important as it determines both the topics and the type of conversations users want to have. For instance, someone who is rushing to the subway needs quick and pointed answers to very specific questions. Someone who is at home cooking engages in a multi-step process of receiving cooking instructions and appreciates a pace of information sharing that is in line with their task.

We also want to understand whether the use cases we are designing for are useful to the user, in their context, and whether a conversation is a suitable channel. Adding items to a shopping list using voice removes the need to use hands to tap and enter information on a phone. Yet using voice to describe a visualization may be more cumbersome than accessing that visual on a screen.

Understanding the user requires user research. There are a number of ways user research can be conducted, whether remote or in-person, using moderated interviews or unmoderated videos and written feedback. Contact your local (or global) UX researcher for assistance.

On the business side, due diligence is equally required. We want to understand how success of this application will be measured, and whether the effort is in line with the company direction. Measuring success is a nebulous area for many brands, and measuring what will be impactful tends to be custom to the business KPIs and overall goals. Yet it is critical to show ROI and continue to build and invest.

Workshops, stakeholder interviews and desk research are some of the ways in which to gather information about the business objectives.

At the end of the day, careful analysis of how a conversational application will benefit users as well as the business allows the executive team to understand the plan, and to provide their support. And that support is critical to success.

For more detail, visit the Conversational UX Toolbox Planning Checklist page.