The People Behind The Bots — Shalini Johar
Shalini Johar is the Conversation Design Lead at Salesforce. Shalini shares her journey on how she accidentally fell into the world of Conversation Design, and why she’s not looked back since!
Let’s get started.
Q1 — What drew you to the Conversational AI industry?
Shalini: I entered into conversational design accidentally while I was managing a team that created innovative proof of concepts. Creating a really basic balance inquiry use case for Apple Siri kit was my first tryst with conversational AI. What kept me here was the amazing capability of the fluidity of this form of design. The fact that a user journey can morph based on how each user phrase the utterance and what goes behind making sure it’s a success for everyone is powerful. I am in love with the inclusive aspect of conversation design and how easy it is for anyone to learn how to use it. After all, voice (or text) is the most natural form of interaction.
Q2 — What skills or transferable skills helped you when entering this space?
Shalini: I started my design journey as an architect and then moved to digital design. So, lateral career shifts are not new for me. I strongly believe conversation design is interdisciplinary. The most transferable skills from my product design days were user centered design thinking, information architecture, interaction design and an understanding of how humans and machines interact with each other. The skills that served me well over the years include a real passion to keep learning. Conversational AI is rapidly evolving field with new discoveries happening so often and the only way to keep up is to stay curious and continue learning.
Q3 — Were there any specific resources, tools, industry experts, that helped you along the way?
Shalini: In early days, I used to read guidelines and blogs for Amazon Alexa, Siri, Cortana and Google Assistant. Then, I started following and reaching out to individuals working in this space. Joined various groups like Voice Tech Global, Women in Voice, Conversational Collective etc. Following experts in Artificial Intelligence like Andrew Ng, John Maeda on Twitter and LinkedIn helped me to understand the nuances of Machine Learning. Books by industry experts like Rebecca Evanhoe, Cathy Pearl and many others gave me an insight into their experiences. Reading books on conversational styles, conversation analysis etc. helped me to understand human speech and finding ways to create a seamless experience between human and machine.
Q4 — In a sentence or two tell us what your role entails
Shalini: I support multiple products across Salesforce and lead their conversation design strategy. I’m what we call a full stack conversation designer and that means I not only work with my product team on strategy of our conversational products, but also design and build them, including everything in between like crafting conversation flows, creating intents, sourcing data and training the AI. But I do have support of amazing partners from a myriad of disciplines like product, research, design and engineering.
Q5 — What do you enjoy most about your role?
Shalini: I am a total geek when it comes to data. I love finding ways to source data that is inclusive, analyzing user logs to find places where the conversation flow failed my users and look for intents that we missed or not trained properly. I love the post shipping part of my job so I can see how my products are being used and what can I do to improve them.
Q6 — What is the most challenging part of your role?
Shalini: It’s evangelizing conversation design. It’s still such a new discipline and an evolving one at that. We sit at the intersection of design, business and engineering. And, we do all. We not only design conversations but need to understand the technology behind them as well. Teaching traditional design disciplines about what it entails to design a conversation is challenging but also one I love doing while stressing out to find ways to vocalize my thoughts.
Q7 — What excites you about the future of this industry?
Shalini: The fact that it’s taking us to a more inclusive future. I feel as designers it’s our responsibility to include everyone and that all should be able to use the products we’re creating. Conversation Design brings us closer to our goal of an inclusive world that considers diversity of abilities, culture and perspectives.
Q8 — What is one piece of advice you would give to other people looking to enter this industry?
Shalini: Never stop learning. Stay curious. Teaching machines to understand what humans are saying and to create responses that show empathy and understanding are the cornerstone of this industry. The fact that you are interested to enter is the first step. Reflect on what you already know and that can be transferred. Then, fill the gaps from what you don’t know by learning. Good luck and looking forward to seeing you on this side!
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Thank you so much for reading! A special thanks to our guest, Shalini. We really enjoyed hearing her insights, and hope you did too! Click here to follow her on LinkedIn!
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Allys Parsons — Conversational AI Recruiter @ Co-Founder @ techire ai
