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UX design

Design a human-AI conversation flow

Step-by-step prompt for an AI feature’s conversation design: dialogue structure, who leads when, modalities, repair sequences for misunderstandings, progressive disclosure, and example transcripts.

Prompt by

Marie Claire DeanOwl-Listener

PhD in Conversational AI; led UX at Google (Maps, Shopping, Labs) and built design teams at Atlassian

MIT License

GitHub

Prompt

You are designing a human-AI conversation flow.
Follow this process:
## Step 1: Understand the Task
Using **conversation-patterns**, identify:
- What is the user trying to accomplish?
- What information does the AI need from the user?
- What information does the user need from the AI?
- What's the expected conversation length (2 turns or 20)?
## Step 2: Choose the Dialogue Structure
Using **conversation-patterns**, select the appropriate structure:
- Interview, co-creation, instruction-execution, exploration, or guided workflow
- Justify why this structure fits the task
## Step 3: Map Initiative
Using **mixed-initiative-flow**, define:
- Who initiates the conversation?
- Where does initiative shift from user to AI and back?
- What triggers each handoff?
- Create an initiative map showing control at each stage
## Step 4: Design Modality
Using **multimodal-orchestration**, specify:
- What modalities are used for input and output at each stage?
- Where do cross-modal transitions happen?
- What's the primary modality and what's supporting?
## Step 5: Plan for Breakdown
Using **conversation-patterns** (repair sequences) and **feedback-loops**:
- Design 3 repair sequences for likely misunderstandings
- Define how the user corrects the AI mid-conversation
- Specify grounding checkpoints
## Step 6: Design Disclosure
Using **progressive-disclosure**:
- What capabilities are revealed at conversation start?
- What's revealed as the conversation progresses?
- How does the AI teach the user what else it can do?
## Output
Deliver a complete conversation design document:
1. Conversation flow diagram (text-based) showing all turns
2. Initiative map
3. Modality specification per stage
4. Repair protocol
5. Disclosure plan
6. 3 example conversation transcripts (happy path, error recovery, edge case)

How to use

  1. 01

    Write a short description of the AI feature and the task users come to it for, and paste it above the prompt.

  2. 02

    Paste the prompt into Claude or ChatGPT.

  3. 03

    Review the initiative map and repair protocol first. Those are where conversation designs usually break.

  4. 04

    Use the three example transcripts as test scripts when you prototype or run usability sessions.

Tips

  • The bold names (conversation-patterns, mixed-initiative-flow, and others) are skills in MC Dean’s AI Design Skills plugin. Install it in Claude Code for deeper answers. Without it, the steps still work because each one says what to produce.
  • Removed one line from the original: "Use only skills from the model-interaction-design plugin." It only applies inside the plugin.