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Artificial Intelligence

August 23, 2023

A Guide to Designing a Conversational Digital Person

By: Supritam Sen et al.

In this paper, we discuss how we designed and created ‘Katalina’, FCAT’s brand ambassador. Designing a digital person required several design considerations and best practices when determining appearance, voice and language, personality and interactivity, and context and function. Technical architecture included considerations like intent routing, usage of semantic search to understand the user’s intent and prompting to guide the responses of the avatar.

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Technology & Society

Ask an FCAT Researcher: Deanna Laufer on Shrinking Families

By: Matt Ehlers

June 18, 2024

Deanna Laufer leads FCAT’s research efforts around what we call the “Next America” — focusing on how we work, play, raise families, and experience aging — and the ways in which these trends are constantly evolving.

Design

A Conversation with Julian Bleecker: Author of The Manual of Design Fiction

By: Will Reed

May 5, 2025

Engineer and author Julian Bleecker joined FCAT to offer his perspective on how the design field is changing as we enter a new era of emerging technologies. FCAT’s Will Reed spoke with Bleecker to discuss how artists, technologists, and everyday...

Design

Humanity-Centered Design: An Interview with Don Norman

By: John Dalton

February 14, 2023

FCAT had the pleasure of welcoming Don Norman, author of Design for a Better World, for a speaking event where he presented an eye-opening diagnosis of how human behavior has led to numerous societal crises from collapsing social structures to...