Thread by @RohanIrvine

Next talk @TimNoonan — Voice UX, insights from the blindside

#UXA18

One of the great things about doing a session about voice and sound Tim has avoided making slides.

He's suggesting people close their eyes for a small amount of time or all the time of the talk and move into an experiential listening space.

#UXA18

Foundations around voice experience design.

It's a very inclusive and expansive field with many dimensions.

It's different from a screen reader.

A screen reader interrogated what's on the screen and doesn't really have any intelligence.

#UXA18

Tim is now playing a poor example of a screen reader. From @VoiceTechCarl

It's really rough, here's the transcript.

#UXA18

Be very clear that if your developing a voice experience its very different from intermediate technology interpreting

#UXA18

Often voice experiences started off as multi modal experiences that are being used as voice experiences.

#UXA18

Tim's example is Siri being asked for the time and it responding with a 'cute' it's crunch time.

#UXA18

Sometimes we have to look backwards to find forward.

The current voice experiences are call and response and single uses.

#UXA18

A lot of the exams Tim has will be voice experiences that don't use voice inputs, they use touch tone inputs.

We don't currently have the confidence that when you request a voice command you will receive the intended response.

#UXA18

For a blind person listening is not an option, if you don't listen you're going to fail. The case studies Tim will speak through were built in close consultation with the blind community.

#UXA18

Voice output has such a large opportunity to be more than just a string of words, call and response and question and answer

They need to be more sophisticated.

We need to experiment and try stuff.

If you're not auditorium focussed it's hard because there is NO rulebook
#UXA18

First example: iVote by phone

Based on a complaint from a NSW constituent about not being able to vote in privacy the NSW electoral commitee wanted to create a voice guided system to vote.

You would use it once.

#UXA18

They had to create a registration process that was accessible

A marketing campaign that was accessible

Work on the pronunciation of the candidates name and make sure names weren't emphasised more.

#UXA18

They developed 2 systems.

Tim worked with a electoral expert and worked closely to deliver the system on time for the election meaning blind people can participate in elections with privacy

#UXA18

Tim wants to expose us to all of the different ways we can do input so we can make better decisions on when to you recorded voice, artificial voice or a branded voice.

#UXA18

They used the number pad to navigate up down left right with 5 being the enter key.

#UXA18

Some of the objectives were to help people through a long and difficult process independently.

When he was growing up Tim had to tell his mother, who had different politics, how he wanted to vote, and hope and trust she selected.

#UXA18

The only way to support someone through a complex process is to guide them.

We needed two voices
A male voice (Lee Perry) for reading the candidates
A female voice for supportive and explanatory

Tim got to sit in the studio listening to MANY takes over and over.

#UXA18

We explained how the names would be read (first name, last name)

Then it announced the electoral district in a male voice

Then it said names will be listed vertically.

Then it explained how to allocate your preference.

#UXA18

Tim spent a lot of time providing feedback for Jo Moran (female voice) to ensure emphasis was placed on the right words to not encourage behaviours like hitting the select key.

#UXA18

With the iVote online there were record numbers of people 'out of state' so they could use the service.

They used MP3s on the site to play the names

#UXA18

What they found was that people got tired using the service.

That meant creating a way to save your vote and come back tomorrow later was integral.

#UXA18

The * key was the options menu key which gave navigation options, recall of last voice command, pause for 5 minutes, clear all your preference, set speaking rates.

#UXA18

They gave people a heads up early on about how to listen at a faster rate.

#UXA18

They also wanted to install a sense of certainty and clarity so you knew you achieved what you wanted to with.

#UXA18

It reflects back your session with the preferences you've selected, then you're allowed to change.

It says you have completed the ballot and asks if you want to submit the vote.

Then is says you have submitted it.

~there are so many check points I love it

#UXA18

On any voice based system the majority of time is spent on scripting.

#UXA18

Early prototyping was using text to speech and brought people in to do observational think out loud studies.

The thinking out loud technique is more difficult with voice interfaces because there's always a listening component going on.

#UXA18

In the second case study Tim created an accessible way to read the news back in 1997. He says that modern voice interfaces still don't include some of the solutions.
#UXA18

Todays News Now was a fully automated solution.

Tim created a menu tree, and a massive perl script that would pull the articles into and access database.

You would log in to the telephone service so you can save articles and skip ones you've read.

#UXA18

The paper was available from 5am which meant you were ahead of your colleagues.

#UXA18

They created voice speeds based on fonts so you could put emphasis.

A feedback loop for people to suggest changes to word pronunciation.

These are long engagements experiences.

How are we going to help people engage with complex navigation in the future.

#UXA18

Voice twchnogy is starting to blend with humanity. It's hard to tell when you're hearing a person or hearing a recording.

We can add and remove smiles to voice.

We need to be respectful and honour the emotion of the person.

#UXA18

Tim will be making his talk available shortly, I highly recommend reading through it because there is rich and very valuable content I wasn't able to capture!

#UXA18

@threadreaderapp please unroll