Voice User Interface Design

Chapter 12. Maximizing Efficiency and Clarity

There is substantial evidence, from surveys and other forms of user feedback, that callers care a great deal about efficiency. Efficiency is the ability to complete transactions quickly without wasted steps or wasted time.

Given the serial nature of speech, efficient design of VUIs can be challenging. Consider a system that, in response to a search request, reads back a list of movies playing at local theaters. You can quickly scan such a list visually on a screen, focusing on the columns and items of interest, but listening to spoken playback of a long list of such items can be tedious. Design of an efficient spoken version may require flexible approaches that allow the caller to navigate the list ...