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WALLY BRILL: Hi, I'm Wally Brill from Google's Conversation
Design Team.
Today we're talking about persona,
the personality of any conversational interaction.
Now Webster defines persona as your public image.
It's the face you show the world.
Think about when an actor assumes a character
for a role in a film or on the stage.
Here's an example.
When Leslie Howard and Norma Shearer played Romeo and Juliet
in the 1930s, it was very different from the performances
of Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in the 1990s.
Yet, it was the same material, just
interpreted with very different personas.
Before you write a line of dialogue,
it's necessary to define the persona.
The documentation you create will be a North Star
to keep the writing consistent and clear.
It also becomes the description of the character
the voice artist will play.
Everyone has a unique persona.
It's there from the day you're born.
And it develops and morphs throughout your lifetime.
It's the who of who you are.
It defines us as individuals to the outside world
and differentiates us from one another.
So today, I'm going to show you how to understand and define
the right persona for your product and brand.
Now, we live in the future.
Communication channels are ubiquitous,
so people have high expectations for what
intelligent assistants can do and how and where
we can interact with them.
So when we talk about persona, we're
not just talking about a voice.
We're talking about communicating
with AI that seamlessly flows across surfaces,
from the Google Assistant on your mobile devices,
to your car, your smart speakers, and your smart home.
So we also have to consider that persona is expressed
through audio content, visual content, interaction
design, and even typography.
But for a voice-first medium like the Google Assistant,
let's focus on just why a clearly-defined persona
expressed in audio is so important.
In "Wired For Speech," Clifford Nass and Scott Brave said,
"When people hear any voice, they
automatically and unconsciously assign a personality to it."
Within less than two seconds, the listener automatically
creates a mental image of who they're listening to.
They identify attributes like age, gender, education,
where the speaker's from, and register,
or their role in relation to the listener.
Did you ever notice how people refer to the Google Assistant
as "she," "he," or "they," rather than "it"?
She told me a joke.
I'll ask him for the weather.
That's because we can't help creating a character
from those attributes.
We go on to make assumptions about traits,
like intelligence, trustworthiness,
and likability.
You start to see how important the perception of the persona
can be.
And now, more than ever, the experience of the persona
is the brand.
They'll be inextricably linked the mind of the user.
And remember, each interaction is
a brand impression, just like a billboard,
or an ad, or the website.
That's why leaving the persona to chance just isn't an option.
If you don't design your persona,
the user's imagination will.
So how do we go about it?
How do we create the perfect representative
for the task or brand?
To answer that question and show you the steps,
I thought I'd tell you a tale of two airlines.
First, Important Airlines-- they're
something like a national carrier.
They're a bit traditional and no-nonsense.
Their strapline, "We're important,
and we will get you there," shows their practical approach.
On the other hand, Millennial Airlines
is clearly more fun and upbeat.
Their strapline, "It's an awesome day to fly,"
kind of says it all.
These are very different brands with very different styles.
So how do we create the perfect persona for each brand?
First, we need to understand the brand dimensions.
We'll interview stakeholders, people from marketing, brand,
and customer experience.
We'll want to review the brand book and any advertising
materials, print, TV, radio, online, outdoor.
And we'll need to experience the product.
In this case, take a trip.
We're distilling the essence of the brand
into a few attributes.
In the case of Important Airlines,
they're solid, confident, expert, reliable,
straightforward, and safe.
You know just what you're getting-- no surprises.
On the other hand, Millennial is very different.
They focus on being bold, hip, fun, youthful, friendly,
exciting, and delightful.
Next, we want to know everything we can about the passengers.
Who are they?
What are their expectations, et cetera?
We'll want to understand the customer demographics,
the intended target segments, and their frequency of use.
In the case of Important, they're
catering to business travelers, mid-30s and up,
high value, frequent flyers.
Once again, the Millennial customer is very different.
They're holiday makers or young families in their late teens
to mid-30s who are budget conscious
and who, for the most part, fly infrequently.
Now we want to determine the tasks our persona will perform.
In this case, we're providing flight status and information.
Is my flight on time?
Has it been delayed?
When is it expected?
Here's the fun part.
We're going to write biographies for imaginary characters who
might be a good fit.
Often, we'll make the register different between them.
One character might have a more dominant personality
versus a character that's more subservient.
First up is Important Airlines.
We mention register as one of the attributes
we can discern from the voice.
Register is the social standing of the persona
in relation to the listener.
So is the persona going to be someone very familiar
like a peer?
Will it be an employee, perhaps?
Or will it be my superior, something
like a mentor or advisor?
It's all about what will be most appropriate for the brand
and task at hand.
For Important, we wanted our personas
to be more of a butler.
So that's exactly what we designed.
Meet Terrence Butler.
He's 56 years old, solidly built, and comes from just
outside London.
The age indicates experience.
His size determines how big-- and perhaps,
how deep-- his voice will sound.
We want to know what influenced him,
so we make his parents a hotel manager and a nurse.
Terrence knows hospitality and how to provide help.
Now let's flashback to the brand attributes
of Important Airlines--
solid, confident, expert, reliable, straightforward,
safe.
You'll notice that a summary of some of his biographical FAQ
shows how his persona ties directly to the brand
attributes.
His very occupation implies professional confidence.
He's been working for the same family for 30 years,
indicating reliability and expertise.
All-in-all, Terrence is a solid fit for the Important brand.
Now we create some content for the character to say.
We write a monologue and some samples
dialogues to record with proposed voice artists
if we're using custom-recorded human speech.
If instead we're using text-to-speech
we produce the monologue using a selected text-to-speech voice.
These recordings provide the writers
with a strong sense of who they're writing for
and gives the voice actor a powerful tool
to help her or him get into character.
The monologue can be a paragraph or two of the persona telling
a story to a friend.
It can be about anything at all, something that happened
at work, a hobby, anything.
It helps to set the tone of voice.
So here's Terrence Butler's monologue about being a butler.
TERRENCE BUTLER: I quite enjoy this occupation.
It's extremely gratifying to know that one is indispensable.
If sir is stepping out of an evening,
I shall have prepared sir's dinner jacket and accessories.
And I shall, of course, assist him in tying his bow tie.
The work of a gentleman's gentleman is never done.
WALLY BRILL: You get quite a good sense
of who he is, don't you think?
Although he's rendered in text-to-speech voice,
his persona is solid and well-represented.
Now here's an example of this persona in an interaction.
It's called a sample dialogue.
And basically, it's a script, like a play
with two characters, a user and the persona.
Have a listen.
OK, Google, talk to Important Airlines.
GOOGLE: Getting Important Airlines.
TERRENCE BUTLER: Good morning.
You are through to Important Airlines.
Am I speaking with Wally?
WALLY BRILL: That's right.
TERRENCE BUTLER: Thank you.
And do you require information regarding your flight to London
today?
WALLY BRILL: Yes.
Notice his language, "Do you require information
regarding your flight?"--
very formal.
Now let's shift over to Millennial Airlines.
Remember their brand attributes, bold, hip, fun, friendly,
exciting, delightful?
So what kind of person would they
hire to serve their passengers?
Meet Helen Haighwater, a 26-year-old gate
agent at San Francisco International Airport.
Helen is super hip and stylish.
She shares a three-bedroom flat in San Francisco
with a software developer and a med student.
She's single but currently dating Gary,
the drummer for a band called the Ironic Three.
They're ironic, because there are four members.
Helen studied drama and English at school with a goal in mind.
Her dream is to be a stand-up comic.
Her attention to detail comes from her dad, a bank manager.
And her love of language comes from her mother,
an English teacher.
And here's how we tie her back to those brand values.
Now here's her monologue rendered in text-to-speech.
HELEN HAIGHWATER: I use everything.
And believe me, when you deal with the passengers,
there's endless amounts of material,
like the woman who was going to Boston,
but her luggage was on its way to Austin or the parents
off on holiday who each expected the other one to bring
the kids to the airport.
Then there's the guy who thinks he deserves an upgrade,
because he was in some obscure rock band from 20 years ago
or something.
Let me tell you.
It's great training for a stand up.
And I get paid for it.
And if I can deal with them, there
isn't a heckler in the world who can bother me.
WALLY BRILL: And here's the sample dialogue.
OK, Google, talk to Millennial Airlines.
GOOGLE: Getting Millennial Airlines.
HELEN HAIGHWATER: Millennial Airlines.
It's an awesome day to fly.
Is this Wally?
WALLY BRILL: Yup.
HELEN HAIGHWATER: Great.
Do you want info about your flight to London today?
WALLY BRILL: That's right.
Notice how she says, "do you want info?"--
very similar content but very different language.
So that's it.
As you can see, persona makes a huge difference
to the perception of the brand.
Thanks for watching.
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