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How to categorize conversational interfaces

Conversational interfaces taxonomy from an interaction perspective

Jesús Martín
UX Collective
7 min readJul 12, 2022
Cheatsheet with the 7 different categories of the taxonomy

Read the article in Spanish: Cómo clasificar y diferenciar los distintos tipos de interfaces conversacionales

As in every new industry, there’s a lot of discussion in the conversation ecosystem about the right terms we should use to talk about our work. We will probably keep discussing for ages about when to use assistant vs agent with very little progress.

However, establishing categories that help us differentiate interfaces is not that problematic. As part of the Introduction to Conversational Interface Design course, I documented the taxonomy I use to categorize and differentiate the different interfaces we can find in the conversational world.

There are some other efforts to do the same like the research papers Towards a Taxonomy of Platforms for Conversational Agent Design and The Anatomy of User Experience with Conversational Agents: A Taxonomy and Propositions of Service Clues. These resources are great but I’m basing my approach on the things that have an impact on the user—agent interaction. I also add some examples to make sure we are all on the same page.

The different categories I use are the following:

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Published in UX Collective

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Written by Jesús Martín

Amazon Alexa and ex-BBVA. Voice and Product Designer. Everything is published in Spanish at jesusmartin.eu. Online course in https://bit.ly/domestikaMartin

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