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

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

2. Company Overview SpeechCycle is the leading provider of 3rd Generation Speech Technology for digital service providers • 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! Confidential

3. 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

4. Talk 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

5. What Are Words For? • It’s time for something new • New things are made from old • This is a challenge: “Good enough never is” (Debbie Fields) Confidential

6. Tomorrow The Car • “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 Confidential

7. Cars • From outsourcing horsepower… • => Confidential

8. Cars To simplifying construction… Ford’s Model T Confidential

9. Cars To the design “revolution” of the 1930’s. Confidential

10. Words Get In The Way • Horse and Buggy ≠ DTMF or “press or say” apps • Horse and Buggy = Holdovers of Early 90’s Design Methods Confidential

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

12. Voices Carry Just what is your Father’s Oldsmobile? • Menus with 5 or more items • Lengthy intros • Inappropriate personas and poor voice talent coaching Confidential

13. Voices Carry Just what is your Father’s Oldsmobile? • Lengthy help tips that every caller hears before they can say a word • Ubiquitous use of “Main menu” anchoring • Terrible concatenation Confidential

14. Voices Carry Just what is your Father’s Oldsmobile? • Gratuitous “help” • Confusing and ambiguous wording • Strange design strategies Confidential

15. Voices Carry Just what is your Father’s Oldsmobile? • Overly long queries • Fill-in-the-blank apps Confidential

16. Always Something There to Remind Me Bumps and bruises and cries of agony • 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

17. Let’s 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 technologyproblem “Voice interfaces are intrinsically social interfaces.” – Ibid. Confidential

18. Let’s Go • Listen and reflect • The real people around us • Transcribe others and yourself • Commonly used strategies Confidential

19. Let’s Go • 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 Confidential

20. Let’s Go • 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 • 25 - 40 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” • “I’m sorry. I didn’t understand you.” • “Sure, here’s some help. You must enter the account number.” Confidential

21. Let’s Go • Let’s 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! Confidential

22. 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 can’t 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

23. 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

24. 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

25. How Soon Is Now? • Maybe this isn’t so hard • Maybe it’s supposed to be this way • But, I don’t think so. We can do better and should. Confidential