Gartner predicts 75% of households will have a smart speaker like Amazon Echo, Google Home, or Apple HomePod by 2020. UX professionals will find increasing opportunities to design and test interactions for this new paradigm. Attend this talk to hear findings from a two- part UX research study combining a quantitative survey of ~1000 smart speaker users and 10 in-home interviews to further understand device usage in context. I’ll share insights about smart speaker use cases, development opportunities for features and functionality, and design best practices for Voice User Interface (VUI) research and design. Further, I’ll cover the unique needs and considerations for conducting VUI research. I’ll answer questions like: * How will ‘Voice First” design affect the UX of other interfaces? * What is Domino’s doing right? And what are they getting wrong? * What’s the biggest difference between usability testing for voice and for graphic UIs? * Attendees will learn what smart speaker users want and don’t want from their tiny assistants and best practices for conducting their own research with VUIs. Presented by Chris Geison

1. Great Voice Experiences
Start with Listening

2. “It’s like science fiction!”

3. Our sci-fi present…

5. Agenda
1. Why this matters
2. What we learned
3. How to research & design VUIs

6. Agenda
1. Why this matters
2. What we learned
3. How to research & design VUIs

7. 129%increase in smart speaker owners 2016 to 2017

8. 16%of U.S. adults own a smart speaker

9. $3.5Bsmart speaker market by 2021

11. “This, in a nutshell, is what it’s
like to be a woman.”

12. “When I have to repeat myself
over and over,
I feel like an idiot.”

13. “I don’t know if it’s because I’m
Black or because I’m Southern,
but those things
never understand me.”

14. Why this matters to you

15. “Voice interfaces will quickly
become a design problem more
than a technology problem.”
-Mark Webster

16. Agenda
1. Why this matters
2. What we learned
3. How to research & design VUIs

17. www.answerlab.com/insights

18. Methodology
Quantitative (“How”)
• Surveyed 1,000 owners
• Sept 2017, re-ran May 2018
Qualitative (“Why”)
• Diary study
• 10 in-person contextual interviews
• Sept 2017

19. Key findings
• High satisfaction
• Low expectations
• Onboarding is critical
• 3rd party applications confuse
• Security is a concern;
privacy less so
• Best practices do exist

20. Key findings
• High satisfaction
• Low expectations
• Onboarding is critical
• 3rd party applications confuse
• Security is a concern;
privacy less so
• Best practices do exist

21. 88%
satisfied or very satisfied

22. 83%
use it daily

23. 53%
now > 1st month

24. 86%
now ≥ 1st month

26. Key findings
• High satisfaction
• Low expectations
• Onboarding is critical
• 3rd party applications confuse
• Security is a concern;
privacy less so
• Best practices do exist

27. 27%
“designed for me”

28. But that window is closing…
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
3rd party app developer Smart speaker
manufacturer
Limitations of current
tech
Human error I'm not sure
Who's to blame?
9/2017 5/2018

29. Key findings
• High satisfaction
• Low expectations
• Onboarding is critical
• 3rd party applications confuse
• Security is a concern;
privacy less so
• Best practices do exist

30. 37%
received it as a gift

31. Key findings
• High satisfaction
• Low expectations
• Onboarding is critical
• 3rd party applications confuse
• Security is a concern;
privacy less so
• Best practices do exist

32. 19% have never heard of skills/actions
33% have heard of them but don’t know what
they are

33. 48%
added no 3rd party apps

34. 50%
app users who use them
daily

35. 40% search for apps more now
40% search for apps about the same

36. Key findings
• High satisfaction
• Low expectations
• Onboarding is critical
• 3rd party applications confuse
• Security is a concern;
privacy less so
• Best practices do exist

37. 19%
have privacy concerns

38. 44%
not at all interested in
using it to apply for a credit
card

39. Key findings
• High satisfaction
• Low expectations
• Onboarding is critical
• 3rd party applications confuse
• Security is a concern;
privacy less so
• Best practices do exist

40. Agenda
1. Why this matters
2. What we learned
3. How to research & design VUIs

41. VUIs aren’t the solution

42. VUIs are a solution

43. Where voice
succeeds • Simplifying multi-step inputs
• Hands-free contexts
• Bringing people together

44. Where voice
fails • Complex inputs
• Complex outputs
• Auditory privacy

45. “If it doesn’t make
it easier, we’re not
going to talk to this
thing just because
we can. If it’s more
complicated than a
website or app,
then forget it.”
-Jenna © AnswerLab 2017. All Rights Reserved

46. Designing
for Voice
1. Fail Gracefully
2. Be a good host
3. Use natural commands
4. Make the user feel heard
5. Design for context & continuity
6. Have some personality
7. Do your homework

47. Don’t be evil
—or naïve

48. Designing
for Voice
1. Fail Gracefully
2. Be a good host
3. Use natural commands
4. Make the user feel heard
5. Design for context & continuity
6. Have some personality
7. Do your homework

49. Designing
for Voice
1. Fail Gracefully
2. Be a good host
3. Use natural commands
4. Make the user feel heard
5. Design for context & continuity
6. Have some personality
7. Do your homework

50. Device: Would you like to track your order or place a new order?
Alysha: Yes.
Device: I’m sorry, can you please repeat what you said?
Alysha: Yes.
Device: I’m sorry, I didn’t get that. Can you please repeat what
you said?
Alysha: [shrugs] No?
Device: I’m sorry, I didn’t get that. Can you please repeat what
you said?
Alysha: [quietly to interviewer] I’m irritated now. I don’t even remember
the question.
[loudly to device] Yes.
Device: I’m sorry, I didn’t get that. Can you please repeat what
1. Fail gracefully

51. Designing
for Voice
1. Fail Gracefully
2. Be a good host
3. Use natural commands
4. Make the user feel heard
5. Design for context & continuity
6. Have some personality
7. Do your homework

52. “This doesn’t make any sense. They should’ve talked to
me first. I could’ve told them this wasn’t going to work.”
–Amanda
7. Do your homework

53. 7. Do your research
Defining the problem:
• Ethnography/
contextual inquiry
• Diary studies
• Personas (design for
Jobs To Be Done
tasks), “place-
for context)
Designing the solution:
• Competitive &
analysis
• Sample dialogs
• “Wizard of Oz”
Developing the
product:
• Usability testing
• Heuristic evaluations
Deploying & evolving
the product:
• Quantitative surveys
• Voice analytics
• Competitive
• Cycle repeatedly
design process

54. Resources
Books
Cathy Pearl, Designing Voice User Interfaces
Erika Hall, Conversational Design
Twitter
@chrisgeison
(subscribe to my list: Voice)
Websites
answerlab.com/insights
www.voicebot.ai
Medium (there’s no voice/VUI topic, but search around)
Podcasts
The Voicebot Podcast
This Week in Voice
VUX World

55. Resources
Books
Cathy Pearl, Designing Voice User Interfaces
Erika Hall, Conversational Design
Twitter
@chrisgeison
(subscribe to my list: Voice)
Websites
answerlab.com/insights
www.voicebot.ai
Medium (there’s no voice/VUI topic, but search around)
Podcasts
The Voicebot Podcast
This Week in Voice
VUX World

56. @cpearl42
@brookebhawkins
@amymarquez
@kjkausha
@KatieMc__
@_marianalin
@muppetaphrodite
@jonesabi
@mulegirl
@SelectaStory
Follow these
women

57. https://www.google.org/crisis/puertorico-relief

58. Device: Welcome to Twitter Reader. I can tell you what
is happening, can read your latest mentions, the last
by you. I can also search for trends by city. When I am
trends, you can ask me to tell you more about the
can I help you?
Heather: Wait, what can you do?
Device: Here are the latest tweets from your timeline...
2. Be a good host

59. “That’s the other problem I have. Sometimes even the
ones that I like, I can’t remember the commands to get
them to work, and it’s [sigh], oh god, now I have to go
look it up.” –David
3. Use natural commands

60. Device: Do you want to log into your profile for a
faster checkout experience?
Brian: No.
Device: Sounds good!
Brian: [Laughs. To interviewer:] It’s just very
inhuman. It’s like, OK, I’m glad we agree. Just do what
I asked, you robot. It’s trying too hard.
4. Make the user feel heard

61. Chris: Alexa, what’s the yellow light mean?
Echo: The yellow light means you have a new message or a
notification. You can say ‘play my messages’ or ‘read my
Chris: Alexa, play my messages.
Echo: No messages from today. You have one notification.
You can say ‘read my notifications.’
Chris: Read my notifications.
Echo: [silent]
Chris: Alexa, read my notifications.
Echo: [reads notifications]
5. Design for context & continuity

62. “I love Dom [the voice persona for Domino’s Pizza]. I
already have a relationship with Dom [through the app
and website] and Dom has not done me wrong. I
already have a high opinion of it, so it messing up, I
know it’s going to get it right eventually. I’ve never used
the Progressive thing so it messing up on the first time
makes me think it’s a miss. If it was obviously Flo that
would’ve been cute, that would’ve upped my opinion of
it from the start. If it had used a voice I recognized.”
–Amanda
6. Have some personality