Applied Tech Frontiers

Explorations of technology applications and opportunities for contemporary societal issues.

This course will investigate the emerging technologies and user experience involving popular voice services including Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa as well as chatbot messaging services such as Facebook Messenger and Slack bots. Over the course of the semester, we will assess the state of the art, identify strategic opportunities to design solutions and create functional prototypes of our designs.

Learning Objectives

• Explore and understand how humans use conversation to communicate, be productive and experience the world
• Foundational relationship between human conversation and voice technologies
• Extend the concept of a virtual assistant as the entity model for engagement
• Gain an understanding of how machine learning plays a role in crafting user experiences

Learning Outcomes

When completed, students will be able to define strategy and design products and services utilizing conversational technologies

Format & Grading

A portion of the class will be lectures to introduce concepts within the area of conversational design. At least half of the class time will be dedicated to designing concepts and developing functional prototypes.

While we will explore writing software, students are not required to have prior experience with software development. While voice technologies are primarily developed for the English language, students with mastery of other languages are encouraged to enroll.

Enrollment Restrictions

No prerequisites. This course is open to all Institute of Design students.