The Elements of Voice First Style

Chapter 11. The Elements of Prompting

Writing prompts can be tricky. When you design your voicebot, don’t leave the final wording of your prompts until the very end. Instead, invest at the outset in the careful crafting of your prompts and make sure you test, review, and revise, until you get the wording just right.

This chapter provides key tips to help you write effective prompts. Following the advice we give you, however, should not replace testing your voicebots end-to-end and listening carefully to how the prompts sound in context and how real users react to them. Do both and you will see a marked improvement in your voicebot’s usability.

Prompt Types

Following are the basic prompt types you will need to write:

Providing information

The voicebot responds with some piece of information.

Requesting information

The voicebot asks the user to provide a piece of information. For example, “What is your birth date?” or “Say or enter your credit card number.”

Confirming information

There are two types of confirmation prompts, explicit and implicit. In an explicit confirmation, the prompt echoes back the information it thought it was given by the user and explicitly requests a yes/no answer to its explicit confirmation request. In an implicit confirmation, the voicebot echoes back the information without requesting any confirmation feedback.

Offering choices

Multiple turn interactions with voicebots almost always necessitate the voicebot asking the user to make a choice between several ...