Design: Voice User Interface Design

This is an excerpt from Chapter 9 of Design Beyond Devices: Creating Multimodal, Cross-Device Experiences, by Cheryl Platz. 2020 Rosenfeld Media.

Chapter 9: Lost in Transition

One constant in truly multimodal systems is change. When you could assume a customer would remain in the same context for the duration of an interaction, the only change that designers had to consider was the change in the customer state enabled by the user interface (UI). Don’t want a change? Then don’t build an affordance for that change. Simple.

Multimodal systems are defined by their flexibility. Without the ability to transition between inputs and outputs, all a multimodal system provides is a single choice up front about an engagement. It’s essentially several mutually exclusive single-mode interactions. Read More

It’s a great time to be a voice user interface (VUI) designer. Voice user interfaces are becoming more and more common in our daily lives. To ensure great user experiences, it’s crucial that designers lead the way in this space.

Many visual designers and interaction designers who are interested in becoming VUI designers are well placed to switch from designing more traditional graphic user interfaces (GUIs) to designing VUIs. Although all UX design disciplines share certain principles, there are some things about VUI design that differ from GUI design for Web or mobile apps. In this article, I’ll cover the main things you should keep in mind when designing VUIs. Read More

Selected sections from Chapter 5 of Cathy Pearl’s new book Designing Voice User Interfaces: Principles of Conversational Experiences. 2017 O’Reilly Media, Inc.

Excerpts from Chapter 5: Advanced Voice User Interface Design

[This] Chapter [covers advanced] voice user interface (VUI) design [topics]. Here, we take a look at what will make [your VUIs] engaging, easy to use, and successful.

Siri and the Amazon Echo are both examples of popular VUIs. The Echo has recently received a lot of praise about its interface. Given that the two systems can do many similar things, why is the Echo often a better user experience? One reason is that the Echo was designed with voice in mind from the beginning—that’s its sole purpose. Siri, by comparison, is just one more way to interact with your iPhone. Read More