Voice User Interface Design VUI

We’ve talked in the past about the use of speech recognition in the realm of note taking, where tools such as Jott allow you to obtain a text version of a voice message, making it easier to document and search for information.

Well, Microsoft just recently unveiled a new application of speech recognition, but this time with a twist. Microsoft Recite (available as a preview which can be downloaded) allows anyone using a Windows Mobile phone to record a voice message or “remembrance”, store it, and then retrieve it later using speech pattern recognition.

The obvious advantage of pattern recognition compared to other types of speech searches is that the message itself doesn’t have to be decoded, transcribed or converted.  It simply uses a “search” sample as a pattern to match one or more of the words against existing “remembrances”.

Even though initial test have received possitive feedback, I’m hoping they’ll expand the tool to include other devices and languages (it currently only works with US English).

As if not enough discussion has been generated over this particular UI design tool on the VUIDs group, it seems the 37 signals post about how they don’t use Personas stirred yet another round of arguments on both their own site as well as in some other UI-related blogs such as Good Experience and The User Experience Soapbox.

I think they all provide a very interesting perspective and valid points both for and against the use of Personas (or Personae) as a design tool.

But for me, aside from it being just one more tool in our UI toolbox, the added extra business value that I find in them (which I didn’t see being brought up on those discussions) is how effective it is to help business owners and other business-side team members move away from thinking about “the user” in an abstract way.

In general, if you’re in the same room with five different people and you mention you want to do something to help improve the experience of their “users”, chances are each and every one of them will have a very different image in their head and idea of who this “user” is and what this “user” needs.

On the other hand, once all the information has been gathered and the right process has been followed to define a User Persona (or Archetype) for your system, then any future discussion takes a very different direction. You’ll notice how now new design decisions and arguments can be centered on your Persona.

It doesn’t have to be too complicated nor time consuming. For example, something as simple as defining a Natalie archetype might be enough: “Natalie is a real estate investor and has an ABC bank customer for about six years. She often calls her branch to get up to date information about interest rates and mortgage products. She normally calls from her home-office, so she’s in a quiet environment. She considers herself tech-savvy, so she likes automation, but time is precious to her, so if things aren’t working fast, she’d rather just talk to someone who can help her quickly.”

With this in hand, you’ll see how asking regular questions such as “how will the user be able to get her balance?” or “will the user need more information after a transaction?” turn into very relevant, in-context discussion starters such as “what’s the best way to offer Natalie the most up to date interest rates?” or “what information will Natalie need after choosing one of our mortgage products to make an investment decision?” respectively.

I understand the concern about using personas to replace talking to real people, but I like to think that they are not just the output of talking to real people, but a way for those people to keep “talking” for the duration of a project. So tell me, what do your users think?

For those of us who are members of the Yahoo VUIDs group, you probably recently noticed an interesting (and heated) exchange of opinions on some of Saturday Night Live’s Parodies about “Julie” – the lovely Persona from Amtrak’s automated response system.

The sad part is that there are quite a few systems out there on the field that really sound and feel like that, so what’s depicted as a parody I’ve run across more than once when listening to callers interacting with speech recognition systems.

But hey! Who says you can’t learn a little bit more about Voice User Interface Design while having some fun? So… considering it stirred a little bit of controversy and to end it on a high note, I found a copy of the aforementioned video and would like to share it with everyone. Enjoy!

Summary: Monotone-speaking telephone operator Julie (Rachel Dratch) meets a man (Antonio Banderas) at a cocktail party.

Anyone building any Julies lately?

The Speech industry added the concept of Personas just a few years ago as a Design tool to align any new designs with an existing company brand/image and to model an ideal customer service representative.

But the web (in particular the field of Usability) has long used Personas in a different sense: a “User Persona” as a stereotype built to model a customer/user so companies can better understand their audiences when developing products/services.

Here’s an interesting article about Adding a Persona Touch that talks more in detail about these types of Personas, and how to use Persona marketing in a b-to-b environment .