General

Winning the trust of users with a Voice User Interface

Bas Alderding

Hey Google! Hello Siri! Good morning Alexa... There is increasing use of voice-activated software, or Voice User Interface (VUI). With the advent of home devices like Google Home and Amazon Alexa, the influence of VUI on our daily lives is growing. It is predicted that by 2020, half of our searches will be voice. Verbal communication is a natural way of communicating, making VUI very approachable form of interaction between humans and systems.

What is Voice User Interface?

VUIs allow users to interact with a system through voice commands. Examples include Siri, the voice recognition programme of Apple, Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa is an example of a VUI. This software can often talk back itself. By means of recorded voice sounds a VUI can say all possible sentences.

The large benefit Of course, VUI's main feature is that the software can be operated hands-free. This allows the user to simultaneously perform other tasks, such as driving or cooking.

Optimising a VUI

Many users often avoid VUI due to a lack of trust. It is important that a developer takes this into account. Therefore, there are a number of guidelines.

Keep the focus on accurate speech recognition.
This can be done by using NLP algorithms. These algorithms are used to catch the most important points from a conversation and categorise them.
Focus on the user's problem or intention.
Provide contextual content.
It is impossible to include all possible commands, but by at least providing relevant answers, the user will have a better experience.
Provide meaningful error messages.
This prevents irritation for the user.

How will you deploy Voice User Interfaces for your organisation?