VUI Guidelines Phil Shinn, Ph.D. pshinn@genesyslab Principal Consultant

1. VUI Guidelines Phil Shinn, Ph.D. pshinn@genesyslab.com Principal Consultant

2. Outline • Interactive session • Introduce a couple of topics • Outline pro’s & con’s • Open discussion for each item • Solicit opinions • Other topics?

3. Source – VUID yahoo group • http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/vuids • 288 members • since August of 2003 • 885 messages • Trolls & flames

4. Topics • Sorry • Help • Naming the persona • Press or say • Timings • Responding to profanity • Give me an agent

5. Sorry • “The time for ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t get that’ … is over. Stick a fork in it. Its done.” • See Nass & Brave, chapter 14 “To err is interface; to blame, complex” • Don’t ever blame the caller • Taking blame results in decreased perceived confidence • Scape-goat the ‘system’ • Too many sorry’s becomes meaningless • It’s a lie that an automated system is actually sorry • It’s a waste of time

6. Help • Should “Help” be a global command? • Pro: people might say it • Con: misrecognition attractor • Giangola, Balogh & Cohen, “Voice User Interface Design” ‘In general, callers must be taught about universal commands, or else they won’t use them. One approach is to mention the help command in the initial prompt, which the user hears when they first enter the system…for example ‘Welcome to Western Valley Bank. If you have a problem while you’re using this service, just say ‘Help’…” (p. 123) • If a system requires users to say “help” in order to use it, it is inherently flawed. • May be cultural/linguistic differences in how help is perceived

7. Help 2 • “For most major VUI teams, help is no longer used/advertised as a global.” • “I find this discussion very interesting, as I was not aware of the fact … that help is no longer used as a global.” • “I’ll take a hard stand against help for two reasons: lack of empirical evidence of it happening in the wild; focusing on help draws attention away from OOG utterences”

8. Naming the Persona • Hi, I’m Nim, and I’m designing a corporate voice portal. Question is, should the system introduce itself with a name, like “Hi, I’m Nim” (or whatever). Back in the day, a lot of systems were designed with this feature, but I’ve noticed more and more are not.” • Nim Chimpsky • Pro’s • Makes the persona more real • Gives callers something to refer to • Seems cool • Con’s • Makes the persona more real • Gives callers something to refer to • Seems cool

9. Naming the persona 2 • “Nim, you have answered your own paradoxical question: your pros are negated by your cons. Forget what others have done. This is no place for monkey see monkey do. Never monkey around with people-aping personas.” • Might be benefits for naming internally • The uncanny valley creep factor: cavemen & lizards • Misrecognition attractors – “around 5% of our callers were using ‘Claire’ in their utterances” • Content versus the media

10. Press or Say • To do X, press or say 1. For Y, press or say 2 • Pro’s • People can use the application hands-free • Punching buttons on a cell phone requires breaking the audio channel • Con’s • Every prompt now longer • Background noise can cause misrecognition events • More expensive

11. Press or Say 2 • “Press one” has morphed into “Press or say one” and almost no one elects to say “one” primarily because they’d feel like an idiot talking out loud to absolutely no one.” • “…is the most degenerate approach one can possibly dream of, and should be forbidden by the Geneva convention • Numberspeak is “…effective in dehumanizing and demeaning a caller … Typical of early speech systems and still suprisingly prevalent today… Responsible in large part for the slow acceptance of telephony voice user interfaces and serious contender for the award for “Most brain dead component” of all time.

12. Timings • End of speech timeout: 3-5 secs • Incompletetimeout default .25 secs • Completetimeout: .25 secs • Maxspeechtimeout: 60 secs • Ep.endseconds default 1 sec • Termtimeout • Timeout: 7 seconds • 5 secs pre-speech • Single words (e.g. yes/no questions): 0.75 sec • Short menus (e.g. ‘checking’): 1 sec • Long menus (e.g. ‘get my balance’): 1.5 secs • String sequences (e.g. account numbers): 2 sec • 4 digit PINS: 1.5 sec • Phone numbers: 2 sec • Credit card: 2.5 sec • Longer for older populations

13. Responding to Profanity • Should we put ‘give me a freakin agent’ in the global grammar? If so, how should we respond? • Pro: Less OOG • Con: misrecognition attractor • If detected, perhaps transfer the caller to an agent? • “We routinely add expletive words and phrases into our grammars when they fit and move the conversation forward, so someone can say “Hell yes” (or better) to a yes/no question…” • Angry people versus wise-guys

14. Give me an agent • A gethuman standard • If people want out of automation, get them out as quickly as possible. • Can say something like “OK, you want to speak with an agent. Just so I can direct your call, are you calling about X?” • The current expected wait time is <x> seconds. • Virtual Hold

15. Other Topics? • Phil Shinn • philshinn@yahoo.com • pshinn@genesyslabs.com • 310 488 9267 • http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/vuids