world, HCI needs to develop two things:
first, and at its broadest, a program
that integrates and bridges speech
technologists with human-centered
researchers. Second, we need a mature
understanding of how this emerging class
of voice-enabled devices and services sits
within mundane social environments
that are routinely saturated with
everyday conversation. One way HCI
can do this is by reacquainting itself
with how talk is accomplished.
STUDYING VOICE
INTERFACES IN USE
We have been tackling this latter
aspiration head on, in service to the
Design is increasingly said to be about
constructing conversations with end
users [ 1]. Advances in underlying
voice-related [ 2] technologies, coupled
with the spread of voice-driven agents
and dedicated devices such as the
Amazon Echo, Google Home, and
HomePod, lend weight to the notion
of so-called conversational interfaces.
In spite of the hyped anticipation of
an AI-powered future, however, it
is not always clear how the vision of
conversation with machines measures
up to lived reality, or if it is even
relevant to actual design problems.
As decades of speech technology
research begin to influence the everyday
DInsights → Voice interfaces are actively embedded by conversationalists in complex but carefully organized domestic settings. → Interactions with voice- interface-driven systems are not “conversational,” and it is unclear how practically useful this metaphor is for design. → Designers should consider how requests to and responses from voice interfaces are designed and what interactional resources they give users
to move on and progress
the interaction.
‘This Is
Not What
We Wanted’:
Designing for
Conversation with
Voice Interfaces
Stuart Reeves, Martin Porcheron, and Joel Fischer,
University of Nottingham
INTERACTIONS.ACM.ORG JANUARY–FEBRUARY 2019 INTERACTIONS 47
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