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Cheryl Platz Modern digital experiences meet humans where they are. Talking to a voice assistant. Typing on a keyboard. Reacting to a vibration delivered by your smart watch. Operating a VR game character with a gesture controller. Wherever you want to be, there is now a device and an interaction modality to take you there. Cheryl Platz is the expert guide who can help you navigate the practice of multimodal design, the new UX approach that connects these many interactions to create one coherent human-centered digital experience. We talked about: what multimodal design entails the inherently inclusive and humanistic nature of multimodal design how a storytelling framework that professional improv actors use can be repurposed as a research framework for designing multimodal experiences how multimodality is a new layer on top of existing design practice how this new design lens shows the need for designing for transitions between modalities the importance of storytelling, especially in the early stages of the design process the possibility of single-sourcing content for multimodal experiences the unique challenges of designing a CMS for conversational agents, like the need for multiple responses in voice interactions metadata strategy for multimodal the inherently collaborative nature of multimodal design the importance of accounting for interruptions and notifications in a world where attention is a precious commodity Cheryl's bio Cheryl Platz is a world-renowned designer, author, actress, and speaker whose work on emerging technologies has reached hundreds of millions of customers across multiple industries. Her professional passions include natural user interfaces, applied storytelling in design and research, and taming complexity in any manifestation. Cheryl’s first book, Design Beyond Devices: Creating Multimodal, Cross-Device Experiences, was published by Rosenfeld Media in December 2020. Cheryl’s career spans a wide variety of high-profile projects at employers including Amazon (Alexa), Microsoft (Azure, Cortana), Electronic Arts (The Sims series), Griptonite Games (Disney Friends, Chronicles of Narnia), Disney Parks (PhotoPass), and presently the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Cheryl also owns design education company Ideaplatz, LLC through which she shares her experience with conferences and companies worldwide. Her work and insights have been featured by outlets including the BBC, Huffington Post, Wired.com, Forbes.com, Adobe, and at venues on 5 continents. Learn more about her unique career - from design to acting - at cherylplatz.com - and follow her on Twitter at @funnygodmother. Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://youtu.be/mLq1YDQ2Mxw Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 96. In the modern world - where you might be asking a smart speaker about online shoes stores in one moment, then looking up size information on your phone, and then sitting down at your laptop to place an order - you really appreciate it when the transitions between those experiences are smooth. Multimodal design is the new UX practice that makes this possible. And Cheryl Platz is the go-to expert on this new approach to designing human-centered, cross-device experiences. Interview transcript Larry: Hey, everyone. Welcome to episode number 96 of the Content Strategy Insights podcast. I'm really happy today to have with us Cheryl Platz. Cheryl just published a book called Design Beyond Devices, and I'm really excited to talk to her about that, but she does other stuff as well. So welcome, Cheryl. Tell the folks a little bit more about what you're up to these days and how you came to write the book. Cheryl: Thank you so much for having me here, Larry. I'm so glad to be here, and I'm really excited to talk to you about multimodal experiences and cross-device experiences, which that's...