Voice-based interaction has become a major disrupter in the world of human and machine interaction. Gone are the days of the “Command and Control” Voice User Interface (VUI), as the focus has shifted to a voice-based conversational UI. Devices like Amazon Alexa, Google Home, the Apple Home-Pod and others are not just redefining how we live our lives, but are bringing about a huge change in how end users experience and engage with technology.
What everybody is aiming for is to build a conversational platform between device and human. Voice is everywhere, and interacting with our voices is far more natural and intuitive than typing or tapping on a keyboard. Speech conveys more meaning than text, and we can see inflections based on how we interact with various systems. Those same nuances that make us human, however, pose a challenge when designing a VUI that can seamlessly communicate with users across devices.
VUI enables users to communicate and interact with voice-enabled systems using speech-recognition technology in a hands-free environment. When deciding whether to use a VUI or a Graphical User Interface (GUI), the answer is simple: determine whether it’s better to respond via natural speech patterns or in a way that only a machine will recognize. Conventional UIs can only be interpreted by computers, so it helps to minimize new products’ and services’ use of them. That doesn’t mean VUI should completely replace a GUI; in certain situations, text input with conversation creates the best user experience. For example, graphical interfaces can be quite efficient when filling-in a lengthy form or comparing multiple products. But asking a device to place an order for ice cream or book a taxi to a destination is much easier with VUI.
Why Voice UI
There are several reasons designers might choose voice UI over graphical UI:
Designing a voice-based conversational UI is not about mimicking how humans interact. It is about designing a voice-based interface that applies human-to-computer interaction design principles within the technical constraints we face in our day-to-day life. In short, it leverages how we interact with each other to build a voice-based user interface that makes it more intuitive for users to communicate with machines.
While designing a VUI, the aim should be to make the user experience simple, engaging and reliable. For an engaging and delightful user experience, the VUI designer must consider several aspects:
To build an engaging VUI, here are four tips that can help designers combine human-centred design techniques with leading-edge technologies regardless of development platform.
The relationship between voice and screen has added a new dimension to VUI designing. In spite of the high profiles of certain branded devices, voice-based UI still has a long way to go in terms of efficiency. The evolution of VUI can be considered the beginning of a new kind of service design, and it’s one with enormous possibilities. Aside from natural-language issues, identifying the environments in which a VUI will be used remains a key challenge, yet it also presents unique opportunities. Voice technology supported by a well-designed VUI will only become more productive as voice-enabled devices increase in number as time goes by.
Anindya Sengupta
Anindya is a strategy-focused user-experience professional who uses a human-centred design approach to solve business problems. He encourages participatory and iterative design techniques that help his clients to determine the future direction of their products.