Chapter Five. Developing the Design

The Sleeping Beauty may well be the best of all my works, and yet I wrote it incredibly quickly.

” PETER ILICH TCHAIKOVSKY, WHO COMPOSED THE BALLET SCORE IN LESS THAN THREE WEEKS

Art has to move you and design does not, unless it's a good design for a bus.

” DAVID HOCKNEY

At this point in the process the designer should have amassed a wealth of client and user research, and developed a thorough understanding of the company's brand. This is when the ideas should start to percolate ”if they haven't already. In fact, by now many designers may already have a fairly clear idea about where they want to go with their designs. It's at this stage that the designer can, and must, go into full-tilt design mode ”starting to correlate all the research they've gathered to develop the design.

What does a design for a speech-recognition system look like? Basically, it needs to convey the particular experience the designer intends to provide a particular caller. A design must first be expressed primarily through the written word, but sometimes with audio components as well.

Now, before we go any further, let me be clear about one thing. This chapter is not intended to teach you how to be a great speech interface designer ”as that is a skill that takes time and practice. Rather, my goals here are

• To offer ideas on how to approach the process of speech interface design and how to think like a designer

• To provide a framework to help you focus your efforts and avoid wasted time and mistakes

• To share ideas about designing certain system components

If after reading this chapter you are intrigued enough to explore new design directions, then my work here is done. Because that's the only way any designer can improve his or her design ability ”by doing more of it.