How to approach voice interfaces (VUI). Voice Interfaces like Alexa, Siri or Google Home create new challenges for designers who need work on smart objects. Thanks to the Internet of things (IoT) technology changes rapidly but design principles are still the same. In this presentation, I explored some principles about design for connected objects, I tried to identify critical points and best trend. - Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions. Luca Lamera

1. DESIGN FOR VOICE
O V E R V I E W
H O W T O A P P R O A C H V O I C E I N T E R F A C E S

2. Laura Klein
Author, Design for Voice Interfaces
“Think of voice interfaces as a
conversation, and, as the designer,
you’re responsible for ensuring that both
sides of that conversation work well”

3. Machines recognise inputs likes sounds, words or
phrases in many languages.
Machines understand the meaning of the words and
respond appropriately.
TECH CHALLENGES
VOICE INPUT
Recognition
Understanding
© Amazon inc

4. Graphical User interface
VUIGUI
Voice user interface
© Amazon inc

5. Don't break linguistic rules. The best
voice interfaces make the user feel like
he’s having a perfectly normal dialog.
Conversational skills
How to improve
Linguistic Rules
Keep every conversation as short as
possible. Don't be too chatty, but short
and direct.
Duration
Is your voice assistant funny? sad?
optimistic? Choose what is the best
personality, different voices have
different effects on people.
Personality

6. Design for
voice interfaces
Discoverability
Predictability
Accessibility
Visibility of the system
Flexibility
Privacy
01.
02.
03.
04.
05.
06.

7. Visual interfaces can give the user explicit choices.
Voice interfaces need to be
proactive and let user to discover
features.
One critical aspect is the memory load, for visual
interfaces showing users things they can recognize
improves usability but for voice interfaces users need
to recall information.
DISCOVERABILITY
VOICE INTERFACE01.
© Netflix

8. Siri needs to understand the input and after choose
how to answer (by a message, by voice or launching
an app).
Designers need to work with
more scenarios because the
unpredictability of the input
and the uncertainty of the
output.
PREDICTABILITY
VOICE INTERFACE02.
© Apple

9. Consider hands-free scenarios, not only for disabilities
but for all the times that an user is not able to interact
or control a device. (e.g: driving, cooking).
The environment in which the
interaction happen can have a
huge impact on accessibility.
The system must be concise and the user should
control the pace of the interaction.
ACCESSIBILITY
VOICE INTERFACE03.
ARTIFICIAL POWER

10. Before to take action users need to understand to
status of the system especially for shared products
(e.g. home automation products, thermostats, Lights
bulbs, etc.).
The system should always keep
users informed about what is
going on.
VISIBILITY
VOICE INTERFACE04.
© Nest

11. A single action like:
"Alexa, add milk to shopping list"
is easy and quick, but several actions of the same type
are repetitive and time consuming.
Voice interfaces are useful if they
can simplify something that
would otherwise take six or eight
taps.
FLEXIBILITY
VOICE INTERFACE05.
ARTIFICIAL POWER

12. Well-designed voice interfaces should always have a
fall back input method for any sensitive information.
Consider private information and
predicting the context in which
that information will be used.
PRIVACY
VOICE INTERFACE06.
ARTIFICIAL POWERARTIFICIAL POWER

13. Pure voice commands can be used in
finite-state interaction, when the
system understand and immediately
execute the command.
Multimodal interface
Design for
Voice
Visual commands are useful for
interactions that require negotiations,
big amount of input or things that are
hard to explain but easy to understand
visually.
Visual
Combine Voice for input and Visual
for output or vice-versa.
It’s important to understand how to
combine different tasks in a effective
way.
Hybrid

14. K. Whitenton
Nielsen Norman Group
“No matter how different the
technology, the people who are using it
haven’t changed.”

15. Design for Voice Interfaces
http://www.oreilly.com/design/free/design-for-voice-interfaces.csp
SOURCES
Basic principles for designing voice user interfaces
https://www.oreilly.com/ideas/basic-principles-for-designing-voice-user-interfaces
Designing for voice differs from traditional UX
https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/21/designing-for-voice-differs-from-traditional-ux/
Voice Interaction UX: Brave New World...Same Old Story
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/voice-interaction-ux/

16. T H A N K Y O U
@lameraluca
lucalamera