Design Perspective
invisible, like a good movie edit
How My Career Began
My career began with disruption. As the perennial “new kid” in a family that moved constantly, every new school was a fresh information system I had to crack just to survive the first week. I became acutely aware of how much I relied on the cadence and mode of information — the subtlest shift in timing or tone could mean the difference between belonging and being lost.
Today, I carry that hyper-awareness into Conversation Design. When I assess a conversational flow, I’m looking for the “New Kid” who is uncertain, navigating a new ecosystem. But I also design for a spectrum of technical abilies. However, these days I also design for distracted users and those who want to multi-task.
I see conversation design as the linguistic choreography within a multimodal experience, or an audio-only experience. My goal is to ensure the conversational layer feels like a natural extension of the visual environment, stepping in like a friend, to provide clarity or speed exactly when pixels aren’t enough. And when there is not visible layer, my goal is to keep my user heads up and hands free anyway with the perfect balance of depth and timeliness of content.
While my background spans linguistics, philosophy, and film, my approach can be best explained through my days as a comic book letterer. I learned then that a good page flow was one where the reader never wondered which word balloon to read next. I apply that same logic to conversational flows today: a user should never be left wondering where to find the information they need or what happened to their request. A successful interaction is one where a natural language flow keeps the user heads up and hands free as if they are interacting with a smart good friend in each conversation.
Information management, context, and mood; not just words
My fascination with communication is what led me to CxD (conversation design), where I merge linguistics and UX with audio-visual storytelling. I want my designs to be almost invisible — felt but not seen — functioning like a perfect movie edit that guides the viewer without distracting from the story.
Conversation design is rarely just about writing; it is also about deciphering and repairing. I diagnose communication breakdowns that neither the user nor the system can fully articulate. By reasoning about how language functions at scale, I can predict patterns and anticipate the conversational paths a user might take before they even take them. My background in film and linguistics allows me to think in terms of information management, context, and mood — the “vibe” of the interaction is often just as important as the words themselves.
One of my favorite challenges is navigating the “guardrails” — aligning natural language with strict style guides and business requirements without making the bot sound constrained. The most effective solutions are those that remain sensitive to the user’s broader ecosystem: how, where, and why they are engaging in the first place.
Understanding the person and the system leads to natural language interactions
The mechanics of a designed conversation are no different from those between two people. When communication fails, the culprit is usually a mismatch of context, an overlooked emotional state, a breakdown across modes, or a connection problem.
Success requires peering into both the personal user space and the deep technical stack. By understanding the human and the system simultaneously, I design interactions that recover gracefully and adapt to the moment. When it works, it feels effortless.
The Redesign Challenge: Rethinking the Legacy
I have a particular affinity for the “complete rethink.” I love diving into new spaces and using emerging technology to overhaul legacy systems.
For older architectures, the “low-hanging fruit” is often easy to spot because these systems typically lack user-focused logic. I can apply basic tenets of conversation design to provide immediate improvements. However, the real work — and the real reward — is designing holistically.
This requires getting answers to the hard questions: What is the “deal” between the bot and the business? What does the customer data actually tell us? How can I exploit the existing system design to create new opportunities for the user? By looking at the entire ecosystem — including other available communication channels — I can move beyond simple fixes to create a truly integrated redesign.
Whether I am overhauling a legacy system or scripting the future of an LLM, my goal remains the same as it was on my first day at a new school: to decode the system so the user doesn’t have to. By designing for the ‘New Kid’ and the ‘Graduate’ alike, I create conversations that don’t just function — they disappear. Because in the end, the most powerful design isn’t the one that draws a crowd; it’s the one that feels like it was never there at all because it feels natural.