6. EMPATHY IS AT THE HEART OF DESIGN!
WITHOUT THE UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT
OTHERS FEEL, SEE & EXPERIENCE,
DESIGN IS A POINTLESS TASK
Tim Brown
7. IT IS THROUGH UNDERSTANDING WHAT
HUMANS NEED, THAT WE CAN CREATE
EMPATHY IN THE METHODS THAT WE
USE & THE MACHINES WE BUILD
Rozina Sidhu Koskela
8. As an end user I should know I am talking to a
virtual assistant and not a human, but at the same
time the assistant should understand me and have
memory
Research by EVRY AS, 2017
9. EVRY Finance Assistant
A digital assistant who manages any question related
to banking & finance, and capable of performing
customer related tasks
I have a background in finance and management and have worked for the main part of my career in London in companies that range from insurance to medical services
I moved to work for a betting company in Malta, for a while, before moving to Sweden, where I progressed my career further, in UX design
After having lived in Sweden for a few years, I moved to Norway, with my family. Here I am currently working for EVRY, the largest IT company in Norway, supplying services related to computing, including operation , outsourcing and online banking
In my spare time I am working as a co founder for Green Dice. We are a service design consultancy, implementing sustainable solutions to improve end to end business processes, through increasing user experiences
The movie´s narrative arc shows the evolution of Samantha´s operating system and her relationship with her user, Theodore
Throughout, Samantha is an impressive conversationalist with a perfect command of language, a grasp of the broader context, a grounding in common sense, and a mastery of the emotional realm.
So this movie has captured, the vision of lightening fast, evolutionary trajectory of virtual assistants, and the emotional bonds we could form with them…
And i hear you say.. Is this a likely future?
Something i want to continue talking about here, is the emotional bond, and that is created through gaining empathy.
Before we can start talking about Empathy in AI, we need to all understand what we mean by empathy
OK so as Business Designers, we are designing for empathy, in every aspect of the work we do.
We can then create empathy in the methods we use and the machines that we build, through understanding what humans need.
So from really putting ourselves in the shoes of the user, we are able to understand their internal and external cues, and therefore design for what users want a machine to be able to do
Based on research carried out on virtual assistants in the banking sector,
THE PERSONALITY OF THE VIRTUAL ASSISTANT IS BUILT ON IT BEING FRIENDLY, KNOWLEDEABLE AND TRUSTWORTHY.
AND ALSO THE KEY GUIDANCE FOR THE DIALOGUE BETWEEN THE USER AND THE ASSISTANT
FRIENDLY
By friendly, the idea is to mimic a human like dialogue and is a strategic way to avoid the basic command interaction.
Being personal is a core capability of this friendliness
The idea is to keep the dialogue going
Setting expectations from the beginning
Readibility is important in making sure that the customer is on board
KNOWLEDEABLE
Knowledge about the customer: Show that you know who the customer is
Financial/banking knowledge: become a trusted advisor
TRUSTWORTHY, through
Security
Advisory: be clear about objectives, and leverage knowledge about the customer
KNOWING WHEN AND WHERE TO APPLY AI IS A QUESTION OF CONTEXT AND A FOCUS ON THE REAL PROBLEMS TO BE SOLVED.
In conclusion…..
So if empathy is developed in a timely, relevant and contextual manner, then trust and collaboration is likely to increase
TIMELY: As quickly as is possible is reasonable in a particular situation
Relevant: Closely connected to what is being done
Contextual: Dependant on or related to the circumstances
So lets take an example, of Millenials as first time home buyers in Norway. They need their problems solved, quickly and efficiently, and if a bank cant provide them with a service from the beginning to the end, it is likely to lose them as a customer.
All of a sudden it becomes vital for a personal assistant, to not just be contextual, but also decrease the rate of error
Once we are able to build empathy in this way, we should be able to work in an iterative way, and redefine our criteria, to help build trust and collaboration
We need to be able to account for errors, in AI just like we account for mistakes in humans.
As well as mapping out the needs for humans, we can map out the needs of a machine.
Now I am going to look at a simple methodology that we can use, to help create empathy with machines.
Does:
What suggested information they can surface, actions they can take, or recommendations they should make
Senses:
Info, history, outcomes, and other context they need to do the work they need to do
Says:
Communication with humans they work with to expose why they are making the decisions they do. This is the key to how we build trust with the people they work with
Thinks:
Heuristics that are learned from people doing the job today that are less fuzzy
Feels:
What do you think is good and bad machine learning? We want to work towards a minimum state of error. This is where intelligent algorithms can find novel correlations with sensing data.
