Wireframe Bonus Episode: What Good Design Sounds Like

We’re officially “on hiatus” between seasons of “Wireframe,” my podcast about how design shapes technology to fit into our lives. But that didn’t stop us from recording a new episode, available right now in your podcast player of choice. Go listen to it here!

This episode was actually recorded live a few weeks ago at On Air Fest in Brooklyn, New York. On Air is a unique conference about creativity in sound, sort of a mashup of everything audio—not just music and radio, but podcasting, sound design, and art, too. Take a look at the line-up; it was full of amazing folks doing amazing stuff in this space.

We decided that On Air was the perfect place to take a look at voice design and the world of Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant, et. al. To do that, we first dug into some early examples of voice-enabled human-computer interaction, unearthing clips of some fascinating precursors to today’s voice assistants. That was followed by a live discussion with two guests who are working at the forefront of voice interaction design: Katie Briggs, product designer at NPR, and Will Hall, chief creative officer at RAIN, an agency focused on voice.

If you’re not familiar with “Wireframe,” it’s a unique kind of design podcast, hosted by yours truly. Instead of merely interviewing well known designers, we dig into the world of interaction design via deeply researched reporting and engaging narratives. In other words, stories instead of résumés. You can read more about it in this blog post, and listen to the first season here.

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