Confidential Retire the Horse and Buggy: Opening a New Era for Voice Interaction Design Phillip Hunter

Confidential Company Overview Rapidly growing software company Software + Services On-demand and on-premise managed service Founded in 2001; NYC-based Experts in speech science, software engineering, advanced voice interaction design Processing millions of calls every month for 5 of the top 6 US cable operators Engage caller in speech dialogs that average 6-8 minutes! SpeechCycle is the leading provider of 3 rd Generation Speech Technology for digital service providers

Confidential Glory Days SpeechCycle - Building a premier design team to design the most complex speech applications in production 14 years in development and design of apps - 10 years in speech development and voice interaction design - Building 3rd design team Intervoice, designoutloud, VoicePartners 2004 SpeechTek Persona of the year Client in 2005 CIO 100 due in part to speech app Patent for caller goal tracking

Confidential Talk Voice interaction design Vitally important to application success Challenging and controversial Done with widely varying quality. Few and often incorrect standards. Objective quality is difficult to measure.

Confidential What Are Words For? Its time for something new New things are made from old This is a challenge: Good enough never is (Debbie Fields)

Confidential Tomorrow The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty - a fad. President of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Horace Rackham (Henry Ford's lawyer) not to invest in the Ford Motor Company in 1903 "The automobile has practically reached the limit of its development." Scientific American, 1909 The Car

Confidential Cars From outsourcing horsepower… =>

Confidential Cars To simplifying construction… Fords Model T

Confidential Cars To the design revolution of the 1930s.

Confidential Words Get In The Way Horse and Buggy DTMF or press or say apps Horse and Buggy = Holdovers of Early 90s Design Methods

Confidential Spirits in the Material World Model T = standards-based instant apps Keeping the spirit of the horse and buggy alive

Confidential Voices Carry Menus with 5 or more items Lengthy intros Inappropriate personas and poor voice talent coaching Just what is your Fathers Oldsmobile?

Confidential Lengthy help tips that every caller hears before they can say a word Ubiquitous use of Main menu anchoring Terrible concatenation Just what is your Fathers Oldsmobile? Voices Carry

Confidential Gratuitous help Confusing and ambiguous wording Strange design strategies Just what is your Fathers Oldsmobile? Voices Carry

Confidential Overly long queries Fill-in-the-blank apps Just what is your Fathers Oldsmobile? Voices Carry

Confidential Bumps and bruises and cries of agony Always Something There to Remind Me gethuman.com, consumerist.com, nophonetrees.com Fast Company: The Agonies of Lewis Black The beginning of the end of customer service… was when they took the simplest service of all--'Hi, I need a phone number'--and put a machine in. NPR: Improving Customer Service Over the Phone The growing use of automated attendants has not improved service MSNBC: CEOs think customer service is great nearly 6 in 10 respondents told researchers they were somewhat upset or extremely upset with the way their most recent customer service experience was handled

Confidential Lets Go Appreciation of the situation Voice interaction design requires a design talent for human spoken dialog Listeners and talkers cannot suppress their natural responses to speech, regardless of source. – Nass, Brave Deep sensitivity to interactive language, not just knowledge of app recipes or top ten lists Solutions are often non-obvious No longer a technology problem Voice interfaces are intrinsically social interfaces. – Ibid.

Confidential Listen and reflect The real people around us Transcribe others and yourself Commonly used strategies Lets Go

Confidential Evangelize the customer Spread the good news of good design Explain voice interaction patiently Boxing – jab, hook, uppercut Fight for good design Use data and examples Lets Go

Confidential Put the buggy in the museum and the horse out to pasture Examples of things to stop doing Long pauses around greeting and language selection Poorly coached talent seconds before caller can talk Only NL offered Crammed menus (Nine! 16!!) Unclear modality (DTMF, spoken digit, NL!, Directed!) Confusing cohesion Others Please choose from one of the following Im sorry. I didnt understand you. Sure, heres some help. You must enter the account number. Lets Go

Confidential Lets help each other Internal and external peer interaction and reviews Professional, separate, usability testing and heuristic evaluation Read Obvious: Voice User Interface, Wired For Speech Stretch: Design of Everyday things, psycho-linguistics Get involved in the larger interaction design community UPAssoc.org, ixda.org, goodexperience.com Classes HCI and design degree programs, local CHI courses, Learning conferences Reach for a higher standard – Push! Lets Go

Confidential How Will I Know? The revolution will be publicized Open prompt – increased stagnating performance by 10% To begin, briefly describe the problem, saying something like 'I cant get on the internet". Or you can say 'What are my choices.' [> 2 seconds] So go ahead and describe the problem. Mobile phone provider – appropriate persona, 3 month ROI

Confidential How Will I Know? The revolution will be publicized Troubleshooting application – streamlining modem reset for 30% less handling time (78 seconds down to 45) Mobile phone provider – easier representation of multiple navigation options: Help Me With Something Else

Confidential Things Can Only Get Better We are supposed to be providing a service. There are those who think that success is beyond us or just want to see this fail Advance the general field of interaction design and HCI Fight the forces of evil and chaos

Confidential How Soon Is Now? Maybe this isnt so hard Maybe its supposed to be this way But, I dont think so. We can do better and should.