VUX World

Tony Lizza, Project Manager at Apollo Matrix, shares his battle scars from working on the technical implementation of the Netflix 13 Reasons Why interactive cinema experience. This was a voice and video experience that was deployed through the mobile web browser and was used to promote Netflix's biggest show, 13 Reasons Why. Dustin Coates and I talk to Tony all about the creation of the experience...

We're starting a new feature on VUX World: The Run Down. Dustin Coates and I are getting together each week (or bi-weekly) to discuss the recent happenings in the voice space and how that'll impact designers, developers and brands. Alexa settings API We're starting off by discussing the Amazon Alexa feature that developers have been clambering for since 2016:  the settings API . With the sett...

Alexa Accelerator 2018 featured startup, Voiceitt, gives people with speech impairments their voice back. Today, we're joined by co-founder and VP Strategy, Sara Smolley, to hear all about it. The There are millions of people across the globe who have non-standard speech. People who've had a stroke or who have multiple sclerosis or cerebral pausey, for example. Voiceitt's advanced speech recogniti...

Ben Sauer is a Design Strategist who's worked with some of the world's well known brands: Virgin, Tesco, Pearsons, British Gas, Penguin Random House, BBC. Ben worked with Clearleft as a Design Strategist for many years and more recently turned his attention to how voice will change design. Over the last couple of years, Ben has been focusing on helping brands navigate the voice space and figure ou...

The first in a new series called 'Unscripted' where we have off-the-cuff, unscripted conversations with voice first leaders and practitioners to get acquainted, hear their story and find out how they do what they do. In this first episode, we speak to Alexa Skill developing veteran, Nick Schwab, founder of Invoked Apps, about: User adoption of his Ambient Sound skills (his daily usage is huge!) In...

In this episode, we take a deep dive into conversational commerce: what it is, what's possible and how you can turn conversing strangers into paying customers. Our guest Charles Cadbury is the co-founder of Say It Now, a company that helps brands respond the the growing consumer need for immediacy. Charlie's history is impressive. He's seen more than 1,000 client briefs and delivered over 300 digi...

We celebrate the 6 month anniversary of VUX World by reviewing the modev Voice Summit event that took place last week in Newark. We anchor on the Voice Summit to take stock of 2018 and look forward to what brands, designers and developers should be focusing on over the next 6 months. To guide us through #VOICE18 , Dustin and I are joined by Tim Kahle and Dominik Meißner, founders of 169 Labs . Win...

This week, we’re speaking to RAIN agency’s Will Hall and Jason Herndon about how their three pillars of: strategy, creativity and technology, are leading the world's biggest brands to voice first success. In this episode: voice strategy, creative prowess and technological genius In this episode, RAIN’s Executive Creative Director, Will Hall, and VP, Engineering, Jason Herndon guide us through the...

This week, we speak to conversation design master, Oren Jacob, about what it takes to create successful conversations with technology. There are so many complexities in human conversation. When creating an Alexa Skill or Google Assistant Action, most designers try to mimic human conversation. Google itself has taken steps in this direction with the fabricated ‘mm hmm’ moments with  Google Dup...

Translating your Alexa Skill or Google Assistant Action is about more than translating the words in your script. It's about translating the user experience. Maaike Dufour calls this 'transcreating' and she joins us this week to show us how it's done. Why should you translate your Alexa Skill or Google Assistant Action? The world is getting smaller. Technology has enabled us to reach and connect wi...

We speak to the creator of the world’s best chatbot about how to design Loabner prize-winning conversational experiences. Steve Worswick is the creator of  Mitsuku , the general conversation chatbot that has won the  Loabner prize for the last two year’s straight. 13 years in the making, Mitsuku passed the  Turing test and convinced a panel of judges that it’s human over the course...

This week, we're finding out how brands can get started and enter the voice first world of smart speakers and digital assistants. Me and Dustin Coates are joined by one of the top US voice first agencies, Witlingo. We speak with two Lead VUX designers, Luciana Morias and Brielle Nickoloff, about how your brand can bridge the gap over to voice. In this episode Brielle and Luciana share how they gui...

This week, me and Dustin are speaking with the Fresh Prince of AI, Frank Schneider, about how Speakeasy AI aims to deliver the promise of AI in voice (that’s a lot of AI’s). How many people truly understand what their customers are asking for? Whether it’s in your Alexa Skill, your chatbot or in your IVR, you can’t hope to serve the needs of your users or customers if you don’t understand what the...

This week, we’re finding out how content creators can have their podcasts and YouTube content indexed and searchable on voice, with Bryan Colligan of Alpha Voice. With the podcast industry thriving and more people listening to podcasts than ever, more brands are starting to launch their own podcasts. Podcasts are a perfect fit for devices like the Echo and Google Home because they provide ambient...

This week, we’re getting deep into voice analytics and will help you learn more about how you can understand the performance of your voice first experience. One of the biggest benefits that technology has given us is the ability to understand. To understand whether our latest PPC campaign had an impact on sales. To understand whether our new website increased our leads. To understand whether our p...

This week, we take a look at the similarities between VUI design for IVR and VUI design for voice assistants. We also explain what VUI tuning is and why it’s important, whilst giving you some tips on how you can tune your voice user interface. We also discuss PinDrop and voice first security. In this episode We speak to one of the world’s expert VUI practitioners, Simonie Wilson, to get under the...

This week, we’re digging into how you can create an Alexa Skill using BotTalk and we give you a template for running a voice first discovery workshop, with SmartHaus Technologies CEO and BotTalk co-founder, Andrey Esaulov. We discuss the importance of starting with a solid use case and how imperative it is to base your voice app on a real-world scenario that’ll add value to your users. What turns...

Dr. Pete, Marketing Scientist at Moz, and world-leading SEO oracle, tells all about the voice search landscape, and how you can rank for searches on digital assistants like Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. This is a jam-packed episode with deep, deep insights, advice and guidance on all things voice search related. We'll give you practical ways to compete to be the answer that’s read out in voic...

We’ve covered plenty of  voice first design and  development on this podcast. Well, that’s what the podcast is, so we’re bound to! Most of what we’ve discussed has largely been voice assistant or smart speaker-focused. We haven’t covered a huge amount of voice first application in the browser and on mobile, until now. Mic check You’ll have noticed the little mic symbol popping up on a nu...

Voice first games are one of the most popular Amazon Alexa skill categories. So what type of voice games are available? And how do you create them? We speak to game developer and reviewer, Florian Hollandt, to find out. Games are helping Alexa take off. According to Voicebot.ai, Alexa Skill games are the  second most popular skill category behind smart home skills. Amazon has been encouraging...

Today, we’re following the story of the inspirational Bob Stolzberg of VoiceXP, and giving you some deep insights into how you can turn Alexa for Business into a business. In this episode, Dustin and I are getting into the detail of how VoiceXP came to be, how Bob almost made $14,500 profit from his first Alexa Skill, why voice is such a big opportunity and how he turned Alexa for Business into a...

Today, we’re discussing the findings of Martin Porcheron’s study, ‘Voice interfaces in everyday life’. We uncover insights into how people actually use Amazon Alexa in the home. We find unique user behaviour, new technology challenges and understand what it all means for voice UX designers, developers and brands. Voice interfaces in everyday life Imagine if you could eaves drop into someone's hous...

Today, we're getting deep into the biggest challenges facing designers and developers on the Alexa platform: being discovered and making money. And who better to take us through it, than one of the most experienced developers on the voice scene, Jo 'the Oracle' Jaquinta. Speak to anyone who's serious about voice first development and they'll tell you the two biggest challenges facing the voice fir...

Today, we’re getting into detail about what it’s like to be a full-time VUI designer. We’re discussing the details of the role, the day to day duties and the skillsets that are important to succeed in designing voice user interfaces. The role of a VUI designer has been around for a while, but it’s not so common. However, with the rise of voice as an access point for controlling technology, this is...

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 lit...