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

If you’re in the market for a new speaker, you might have trouble finding one that isn’t labeled smart—or at the very least, voice activated. Maybe that’s just what you’re looking for. In fact, maybe you’re really excited about the idea of controlling some of the lights in your home via voice and are ready to brave the waters of home automation. So you pick up a smart speaker and some expensive light bulbs.

You get home and set everything up, thrilled that you can now ask your smart speaker to turn the lights in your living room on and off and even dim them. When your partner arrives home, you demonstrate this new bit of automation only to receive a cold reprimand for buying what’s basically a $1,000 light switch. Read More