If speech is the most natural form of communication, then why do we often find it so hard to use speech to communicate with machines? In short, machines aren’t human, so using speech to communicate with them is anything but natural. The techniques for designing usable speech user interfaces are not obvious, and must be informed by a combination of critically interpreted scientific research and leading design practices. This book draws upon the key scientific disciplines of psychology, human-computer interaction, human factors, linguistics, communication theory, and service science; the artistic disciplines of auditory design and script writing; and experience in the assessment, design, and deployment of real-world speech applications. The goal is a comprehensive yet concise survey of practical speech user interface design for interactive voice response (IVR) applications.
Although there are several books available on this topic, the two that, in my opinion, have provided good research- and practice-based guidance for the design of speech-enabled interactive voice response applications are Balentine & Morgan’s (2001) How to Build a Speech Recognition Application and Cohen, Giangola, and Balogh’s (2004) Voice User Interface Design. There has, however, been significant research published in the design of speech user interfaces over the past ten years which has led to the modification of some of the design practices taught in those books. In some cases, I’ve had the opportunity to participate in this research, and, due to my consulting work, have also confronted the problem of translating this research into design practice. It’s often challenging, but also unbelievably rewarding, to start from a high-level conceptualization of an interactive voice response system, work out the design details, get the system built and tested, and then listen to callers successfully using the system.
This book focuses on the design of speech user interfaces for IVR applications. There are many other applications for speech technologies, such as dictation systems, command and control, and multimodal applications, that are outside the scope of this book, and for which I do not know of any recent practical book-length treatments. This is probably because IVR applications involve significant investments from the enterprises that use them, so this is where a significant amount of current applied speech development activity has occurred. Also, there’s no point in working out a detailed user interface for an application, only to find that no one can build it in the foreseeable future – thus, this book’s focus on practical speech user interface design for IVR applications.
User interfaces for IVR applications are especially challenging because they require human-computer interaction solely through the audio channel, without any visual display. Furthermore, most IVR applications must be immediately usable because callers often have little experience with the application and have no alternative means for learning how to use the application. Whether the IVR will route the call to an agent or provide self-service, it must efficiently guide the caller through the task or risk losing the call (and, possibly, a customer).
If you’re a speech user interface designer, then you can compare the practices taught in this book with your own. With any luck, you’ll come across some new ways of approaching speech user interface design that will sharpen your skills, whether or not you agree with everything. If you manage speech user interface design projects, then you should be able to use this information to get a better understanding of what your designers do and how to avoid some unfortunately common but ineffective design practices. For students, I’ve tried to provide the references that support the design practices put forth in this book so you can work your way back through the supporting scientific literature. Also, where there are as yet insufficient published studies to address certain issues, I’ve tried to point those out, in the hope that those of you who are graduate students might find a research topic that grabs your interest, and the pursuit of which will add to the body of research that guides speech user interface design.
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