Getting people to talk to an animal: lessons learned designing Aardvark

For the past year Rob and the team at The Mechanical Zoo have been designing Aardvark, a new Social Search product primarily used through IM and Email. In this talk Rob will talk about some of the challenges faced and lessons learned during the past year of product design, including:

* heuristics for a successful conversational interface

* sensitivities to different channels (Web, IM, Email and Mobile) and unifying a multi-channel experience

* obstacles faced in introducing a new Search user experience

* the strengths and weaknesses of various research methods

* incorporating user-centered design into an agile engineering process