Since the advent of Amazon’s Alexa, every interface has to be conversational. It’s one of the major trends shaping our interactions with digital devices for better or worse. Please join us for an afternoon where we deep-dive into these invisible interfaces - or rather Voice User Interfaces (VUIs). Three excellent speakers will through a series of short talks provide us with different perspectives on the challenges and opportunities ahead for those working with voice interfaces.

When we interact with devices not through a screen but through voice, there are no visual affordances and no clear indications of what our options are. So, how do you design experiences and services of voice and audio? Can you have a human conversation with a machine - and should you? What should that voice sound like? And what are the privacy implications of all of these voice devices around us?

17 - 17.20 Welcome and drinks

Have a pre-Friday drink and get yourself comfortably seated. Say hi to the people you know and maybe a few strangers, too.

17.20 - 17.40 Prototyping conversations for voice interfaces (20 mins)

The digital design and strategy agency Charlie Tango will kick off the afternoon and welcome us all to their office! For some years, the clever guys at Charlie Tango have been prototyping conversational interfaces, so get ready for when they’ll share their experiences. They will let you into how they prototype their way through the process of building and training the voice bot - along with their thoughts around creating vocal personalities and why this is important for the user experience.

https://www.charlietango.dk/

17.40 - 18.00 Meet Q, the genderless voice (20 mins)

Jacob from VIRTUE Nordic, VICE’s advertising agency, will be sharing his experiences from working on Q, the genderless voice project for AI, which raises questions about our gender bias in vocal UI. He'll be focusing on the process and thoughts behind the design.

https://www.genderlessvoice.com

18.00 - 18.20 Project Alias (20 mins)

Meet Tore & Bjørn, who currently works at Tellart and Topp (design agencies in Amsterdam and Malmö). They’re the two guys behind Project Alias, a "hack" for one’s Google Home or Amazon Alexa device. Alias is a teachable “parasite” that is designed to give users more control over their smart assistants, both when it comes to customisation and privacy. They’ll take us through their experiences working on the project, and the reactions that followed.

https://www.instructables.com/id/Project-Alias/

18.20 - 19.30 Network and mingling

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Please note that the event is free for paying members of the SDN. For everyone else, we're asking a small fee to ensure we can offer drinks and snacks at our events.