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 ways people behave with less restraint in an online environment. And according to the article, the real issue comes from the fact that sometimes, “thoughts expressed while sitting alone at the keyboard would be put more diplomatically — or go unmentioned — face to face.”
Which makes me think… are we as Voice User Interface Design running into similar situations where words or phrases we would normally put more diplomatically - or not mention at all - face to face are ending up in our Dialog Designs? Are we creating the equivalent of “road rage” over the phone by not taking into account the way the brain works when interacting with our designs?
Just as in the online world, we have to understand the intricacies of an interface between the brain’s social circuitry - in particular the cerebral cortex - and the online world (or in our case virtual over the phone world).
“In face-to-face interaction, the brain reads a continual cascade of emotional signs and social cues, instantaneously using them to guide our next move so that the encounter goes well. Much of this social guidance occurs in circuitry centered on the orbitofrontal cortex, a center for empathy. This cortex uses that social scan to help make sure that what we do next will keep the interaction on track.”
Lacking real-time cues, we can easily misread the printed words in an e-mail message (or in our case, mishear the spoken words in a system message), taking them the wrong way.
The good news is that there are ways for us to minimize this issue - which the online world doesn’t really have! Since we now know how the cortex works and we understand how it needs social information to know how to select and channel our impulses, we can provide that social information element by using voice coaching techniques such as a change in the tone of voice, use of the right intonation, etc.
Remember, in the online world, e-mail or instant messaging, there are no channels for voice, facial expression or other cues from the person who will receive what we say. But in our world, we can take advantage of those voice elements and attributes that can help us deliver a much better experience, without the flaming 