Jellyvision - Interactive Conversation

Jellyvision's well-executed interactive conversations encourage you to "feel" that a prerecorded host is talking, listening and intelligently responding to you.

Their guidelines for designing, writing and performing for an interactive conversation are as follows:

Maintain Pacing

Draw your visitor into the flow of conversation with the right choices.

1. Give the visitor only one task to accomplish at a time.
2. Limit the number of choices the visitor has at any given moment.
3. Give the visitor only meaningful choices.
4. Make sure the visitor knows what to do at every moment.
5. Focus the visitor's attention on the task at hand.
6. Use the most efficient manner of visitor input.
7. Make sure the visitor is aware that the program is waiting for a response.
8. Pause, quit or move on if input doesn't come soon enough.

Create the Illusion of Awareness

Respond with human intelligence and emotion to all of your visitor's actions.

1. Respond to a visitor's actions.
2. Respond to a visitor's inactions.
3. Remember a visitor's past actions.
4. Respond to a series of the visitor's actions.
5. Incorporate the actual time and space that the visitor is in.
6. Compare different visitors' situations and action.

Maintain the Illusion of Awareness

Avoid mistakes that remind your visitors that they are interacting with a machine.

1. Use text and dialogue that generate a sense of intimacy.
2. Make sure characters act appropriately while the visitor is interacting.
3. Use dialogue that never seems to repeat.
4. Be aware of the number of simultaneous visitors.
5. Be aware of the gender of the users.
6. Make sure that the dialogue performance is seamless.
7. Avoid character commentary when user input cannot be evaluated.

Sample conversations: http://www.jellyvision.com/examples.htm