How do I become a conversation designer?

This is one of the most frequently asked questioned I get! In fact, I wrote an article about it in 2019. But if you’re looking for something a bit shorter, start here.

First off, there is no one true path to becoming a conversation designer. I know people who come from engineering backgrounds, linguistics, and graphic design—but also people who started as screen writers, comedians, musicians, and actors.

There are no schools at which to get a degree in conversation design, but there are places that offer training and certification.

In general, there are two things that are important to be a good conversation designer:

  • A curiosity and respect for how humans communicate

  • An understanding of the technical limitations of speech recognition and NLU (Natural Language Understanding).

Great. So how do you get started?

As with anything, it’s about learning and doing. On the learning side, follow people on social media who share interesting content. Listen to podcasts, read books, and join communities. Don’t be afraid to wade in as a beginner.

On the doing side: there are free tools and tutorials out there that let you build your own conversational experiences, many of which don’t require coding. Experiment! Make mistakes! Dare to let other people try what you create—you’ll quickly see where your design went wrong. Iterate, and try again.

Finally, when you are looking for jobs in the space, don’t assume you have to be at a large company like Google or Amazon. I learned so much at startups, and got to wear a lot of hats. Also, many companies (like banks, retail, travel, healthcare, etc) are looking to hire conversation designers but don’t always use that term in their job postings. Search under voice user interface designer (VUI), chatbot writer, and content strategist as well. Often, you’ll have more impact at a smaller company (or one in which you’re one of the only conversation designers).

There is no one place to go for great content/learning on conversation design, and new resources are always popping up, but I have included some links below to get you started. Check out my Twitter account for more links. (@cpearl42)

Cathy PearlComment