Voice User Interface Design VUI

As a follow-up to my previous post, it was interesting to read David Pogue’s review of Google’s First Phone,  particularly in regards to some of the UI Compromises designers had to make on this first iteration of the Android-based phone:

1. The Menu Button – This feature provides context-relevant options based on the current task.  David compares it to the functionality of a mouse right-button that offers commands like Hold, Mute and Speaker when you’re on a call.  It also offers next-step related commands such as Archive and Delete once you’ve read an email.  This is a great strategy I always like to implement, particularly on Voice User Interfaces where callers can only be presented with a limited set of choices, and there’s a clear set of task-related options that callers would be looking for without having to ‘go back’ to a so-called Main Menu.  In my mind, this should be renamed as the “Common-Sense Button”
2. Two different programs for e-mail – Ouch, this one really hurts.  Granted Gmail has a different mental model and framework than other e-mail programs, I think this one shows a lack of understanding of what users look for: simplicity and efficiency We know complexity exists everywhere, but that complexity should be hidden, whenever possible, from the UI and the user interaction.  And to add insult to injury, it seems that replying to an email in the non-Gmail program puts your cursor in the To box…  I’m just glad they have an open architecture that allows anyone to improve these interfaces
3. (Useless?) Tilt sensor – This has to be the weirdest one of them all.  If the phone contains a sensor similar to the one powering the iPhone, why did they not hook it to the screen?  The fact that someone is turning the phone 90 degrees should be enough indication of intent, so why put users through the extra step of making a menu selection or pressing a key?  This one feels like those menu prompts that first ask you to press 1 for “Arrivals or Departures Information” – which gives intent information, albeit not in an ideal way – followed up by an absurd follow-up menu asking you to “press 1 for Arrivals or 2 for Departures”.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 16th, 2008 at 4:03 pm and is filed under Customer Experience, Multimodality, What's Broken. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.