The Elements of Voice First Style

Chapter 7. The Basic Tenets

While designing your voicebot for high usability, remember the following tenets. They will keep you safe from blind alleys and other UX design binds that are easy to get into if you are not careful but are difficult to recover from.

The Voicebot Is Not a Human

The voicebot is first and foremost a piece of technology and it exists to make the life of a human better. This is obvious, but it is worth stating and keeping in mind. The voicebot is not a human and it should never pretend to be a human or claim the privileges of a human. It can mimic a human and it can lean on the techniques that humans use with each other to communicate effectively. But it should not behave in such a way that the user is fooled into thinking that the voicebot is as sophisticated and as emotionally intelligent as a human.

Here’s why. First, there are ethical issues that such a voicebot would introduce. For instance, using politeness protocols, the voicebot could gain the trust of the user to such an extent that the user forgets that the voicebot is merely a tool that a private corporation or a government agency is using. The user then feels comfortable buying things from, or providing sensitive information to, the voicebot who is working on behalf of the entity.

Second, behaving in a way that gives the user the impression that the voicebot is much smarter than it really is would likely result in the user conversing with it in a way that quickly outstrips the linguistic or ...