That’s what Kathy Sierra blogs about, and in particular, she had some very interesting remarks in her speech at this week’s “South by Southwest” (SXSW) conference. Some of the ones that I feel include the Voice User Interface community and challenge us to think outside the box include: “How can we make our apps feel [...]
A friend of mine sent me this, and I thought it was really funny. It seems IVRs are entering prime time television not only in the US (as seen in the “Saturday Night Live” sketches of Julie) but in other countries too. It is interesting how even though we all speak different languages, we always [...]
We as VUI Designers struggle with callers wanting and expecting more features (featuritis) while requiring simple to use interfaces. So what can we do about it?
(Adaptation from Gerry McGovern’s New Thinking column) Marketing and legal messages, as well as reference to “visit our website” are the curse of the Phone. Those intrusive messages reflect a company way of thinking that’s centered around what the company wants to tell a caller, and not on why the caller is picking up the [...]
This morning I found a very interesting essay from the NY Times called “Flame First, Think Later“, where social neuroscience offers clues into the neural mechanics behind messages that are taken as offensive, embarrassing or downright rude. The term “flaming” (technically known as “online disinhibition effect”) is used by psychologists when referring to the many [...]
As an added bonus for all those VUI Designers out there, I want to add one more guideline for handling errors when designing Voice User Interfaces: Guideline #6: Be relevant Throughout the system, any good design should strive to obtain as much information as possible from user profiles, back ends or any other sources [...]
Wrapping up the series, here’s the fifth guideline for handling errors when designing Voice User Interfaces: Guideline #5: No need for help This is another controversial guideline in which VUI designers again advocate either its use or its avoidance, without any clear consensus. The idea of “help” (specific error prompt normally played a caller says [...]
Getting close to the end of the series, here’s the fourth guideline for handling errors when designing Voice User Interfaces: Guideline #4: Second-level errors should be relevant and informative Even though this sounds obvious, most applications out in the market tend to use a second-level error strategy which boils down to either a repetition [...]
Continuing the series, here’s the third guideline for handling errors when designing Voice User Interfaces: Guideline #3: Avoid the use of delayed help This is a controversial guideline in which VUI designers don’t seem to have found a consensus on whether the benefits justify the difficulty of implementing it properly. The idea of “delayed [...]
Continuing the series, here’s the second guideline for handling errors when designing Voice User Interfaces: Guideline #2: Maximum of two errors – of any kind! Most systems keep track of error events using individual counters for each error event (no speech and no match), which could potentially be reset if the interaction is part of [...]
