A Web Directions event Respond 2017 Australia's Front End design conference

Session Details

Elizabeth Allen

Designing Conversational Commerce

Elizabeth Allen UX Researcher

One type of tool that Shopify has developed for entrepreneurs is messaging bots that behave like “virtual employees” – they autonomously handle customer service interactions, online marketing campaigns, and even make sales.

These very simple bots help overwhelmed entrepreneurs stay on top of their businesses without spending the time and money required to hire additional human staff.

In this talk, Elizabeth discusses the UX research and design work that goes into developing these “game-changing” employees for busy entrepreneurs, and shares lessons learned along the way about facilitating communication between businesses and their customers.

Elizabeth Allen

Dr. Elizabeth Allen is a UX researcher, psychologist, and cat owner based in Toronto, Canada. She works at the ecommerce platform Shopify, where she conducts research to guide product teams in making strategic decisions about user experience. Before she got into UX, her research as an experimental psychologist focused on explaining why normal, healthy humans can differ widely in their cognitive and perceptual experiences of the world.

Like most at Shopify, Elizabeth is always working on at least one side business in her spare time. Currently, this means she’s writing a book to help academics transition into UX roles, and designing and selling psychology-themed products to sell at her store, goodgestalt.com.

Don't miss your chance to see Elizabeth Allen and many other inspiring speakers at Respond 17.

Tickets start at $999, for an in-depth day with the world's leading Front End design experts.

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Australia's Front End design conference, now in Sydney and Melbourne.

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What is Respond?

Australia's Front End design conference, now in Sydney and Melbourne

Now in its fourth year, and curated by John Allsopp, cited by Ethan Marcotte as one of the originators of Responsive design, Respond goes beyond the technology, to address the myriad challenges we face in delivering modern, responsive Web experiences.

Featuring a mix of renowned international and local speakers, Respond is one of the World's leading events for the Web industry.

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Praise for past Web Directions events

Web Directions is the must-attend event of the year for anyone serious about web development.

Phil Whitehouse, General Manager, DT Sydney

I’ve been admiring the Web Directions events for years, and was honored to be part… What a fantastic event!

Ethan Marcotte, inventor of "responsive Web design"

Out of any conference, Web Directions is far and away our favourite

Dave Greiner, founder, Campaign Monitor

our audience watches intently

About Us

Co-founded and now run by John Allsopp, Web Directions has for over a decade brought together leading developers, engineers, visual, IxD, UX and product designers, Art and Creative Directors, indeed everyone involved in producing web and digital products to learn from one another, and the World's leading experts across this vast field.

We spend our lives thinking about what comes next, keeping up with trends in technology, practices and processes, and filtering the hype, to make sure you don't miss trends that matter, and don't waste time on hype that doesn't.

We promise attending one of our events will leave you significantly better versed in the challenges you face day to day, and in solutions for addressing them.

In 2017, we'll be organising Respond in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane Transform in Canberra, Code also in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, and Direction in Sydney.

vignettes form our events, social, speakers and more. Includes Hannah Donovan skylarking.

John Allsopp

John Allsopp has been working on the Web for over 20 years. He's been responsible for innovative developer tools such as Style Master, X-Ray and many more. He's spoken at numerous conferences around the World and delivered dozens of workshops in that time as well.

His writing includes two books, including Developing With Web Standards and countless articles and tutorials in print and online publications.

His "A Dao of Web Design" published in 2000 is cited by Ethan Marcotte as a key influence in the development of Responsive Web Design, who's rightly acclaimed article in 2010 begins by quoting John in detail, and by Jeremy Keith as "a manifesto for anyone working on the Web".

Code of Conduct

For over a decade, we've worked hard to create inclusive, fun, inspring and safe events for the Web Industry.

As part of our commitment to these values, we've adopted a code of conduct for all involved: ourselves, our speakers, our partners and our audience.

If you have any concern or feedback, please don't hesitate to contact us.