Top 5 VUI Dialog Design Guidelines for Handling Errors - #4 of 5
Posted by: eolvera, in Usability, Dialog Design
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 of the first error message played or the help message, prefixed by “I’m sorry, I still didn’t get that.”
Therefore, the intent of the second-level error message should be to try to get the user back on track in a final attempt while addressing most of the reasons why they ended up in that situation in the first place.
Some of the suggested strategies include:
- More detailed explanation of each one of the choices (e.g. from “transfer funds” to “transfer funds between your account”, from “get your balance” to “get your latest account balance”, etc.)
- “Sneak preview” of other choices available, transfer options, and ‘hidden shortcuts’. If a menu contains a “more choices” or “something else” category, this message can give an idea of the choices contained under them (e.g. “or if you want to do X, Y or Z, you can say ‘more choices’.”) or provide secondary/hidden shortcuts not presented on the previous prompts (e.g. “or to start the transfer over”, “you can also say help for more information”, “or to talk to someone about this problem”, etc.)
Other articles on this series: [1], [2], [3], [5] and [extra]