The Impact of Voice User Interfaces on Interaction Design

VUI, or Voice User Interface, is a modern-day innovation in Interaction Design. It is a technologically superior mode of interaction, one that challenges the traditional ‘touch and feel’ mode of interaction between a product and a user. But before delving into how VUI has left a significant impact on Interaction Design, let us explore what interaction design is and how it operates.

What is Interaction Design and How Did Voice User Interface (VUI) Come About?

Interaction Design is a design field that is dedicated to improving the connection between people and their products. Mostly, the products involved are digital and technology-driven, which require human interaction to operate or be instructed. Those studying this design field are always finding a way to better the connection between the products and their users.

They attempt to give more meaning to that ‘interaction’ and enhance the product’s applicability. The primary goal of Interaction Design is to make the world a faster, easier, better, and brighter place. In an attempt to constantly keep improving the interaction between them, designers have come up with the Voice User Interface.

It still hasn’t been many years since the manual touch on the digital screens of mobile phones was a brand innovation in the technology world. Mobile phones used to be pad-enabled, where one had to manually type in the letters or numbers and then place a call or send a text message.

Touchscreens have revolutionized the way we interact with our phones and changed mobile technology forever. Little did the world know back then that soon enough, a new mode of interactive technology was going to make touchscreens seem old. This is where VUI has disrupted the world of Interaction Design ever since its creation.

The first VUI came about long ago, in 1984, when SpeechWorks and Nuance introduced it to recognize human voice over call and performed the tasks given to them. It was an early version of the VUI, one that was introduced to the public even before the advent of mobile phones.

Long before that, in the 1950s, Bell Labs introduced an Automatic Digit Recognizer that could recognize spoken digits with over 80% accuracy. They named it ‘Audrey’, which served more as a demonstration model.

The Rise of Voice User Interface (VUI) and Replacing Traditional Models

From then to now, VUIs have come a long way. As of today, Voice User Interfaces are dominating the Interaction Design field. Users and their technology-driven products are increasingly relying upon spoken language, speech recognition, and large language processing models for interaction over traditional touch-based interaction. This is how far VUIs have impacted Interaction Design.

The focus has completely shifted from traditional touch-based interactions to hands-free, voice-driven interactions. Therefore, designers are bound to prioritize natural language, clear feedback, and efficient task completion. The goal of Interaction Design is to create products that enable the user to achieve their objectives in the best possible manner.

If VUIs are consistently and effectively enabling better or equal levels of interaction as touch-based ones, then 9 out of 10 customers would prefer VUIs. This is because VUIs are far more user-friendly; they don’t even require the bare minimum effort to touch, type, and draw patterns to interact.

The Underlying Technology of Voice User Interface (VUI)

VUIs work on a two-step approach. The first step in how this technology functions would be recognizing the speech to understand spoken commands. The next step would be using the text-to-speech translation to respond. It works smoothly, and only barely does it throw up in accurate responses. Several companies have created their brands out of Voice User Interfaces.

Google has Google Assistant, Amazon has Alexa, Apple has Siri, Microsoft has Cortana, Samsung has Bixby, and many more. The underlying technologies behind any of these VUIs are more or less the same. They are Speech Recognition, Natural Language Processing, and text-to-speech synthesis.

What is the Impact of Voice User Interface on Interaction Design?

Here’s a more condensed version of how Voice User Interfaces (VUI) have impacted the field of Interior Design:

• Voice User Interfaces have forced users to move away from Graphical User Interface (GUI), where they rely on touchscreens and buttons. This is a huge shift in the paradigm.

• The hands-free interaction mode has slightly improved the User Experience (UX). People now no longer need to physically touch or look at a screen. This becomes extremely advantageous while multitasking. In the modern-day world, where users are often occupied with more than one activity at a time, multitasking has become the norm. Therefore, for them, VUIs are significantly better than traditional touchscreens.

• Since VUIs are designed to understand natural languages, users can talk more conversationally. So, users can not only instruct their digital devices fitted with VUI to follow an order, but they can also converse with them. Interaction has become easy this way.

• VUIs have tremendously improved the accessibility to all features for all people. Those with disabilities such as difficulties in motor functions or visual impairments can also access any digital device with VUI.

• VUIs aren’t just any model to take instructions and perform tasks; they are designed to streamline interactions. This allows users to complete tasks quickly and easily.

What are the Design Considerations For Voice User Interface (VUI)?

In the creation of any Voice User Interface (VUI), the design of the ‘Voice Command’ is the primary focus of any Interaction Designer. It is incumbent upon the designers to create a system of voice commands that are easy to understand and use.

After that, designers also need to fit any VUI with a ‘Feedback and Confirmation’ option for the VUIs to provide clear and timely feedback to the users. VUIs need to do that to better understand what the system is doing. While designing, Interaction Designers also need to anticipate potential errors and provide clear messages that are helpful to users. This is called ‘Error Handling.’

Finally, the Personality and Tone can also be designed into any VUI. Interaction Designers can give VUIs a personality and tone of their own, just to provide a more human feel to the user while interacting with it.

Therefore, Voice User Interfaces (VUIs) have impacted the world of Interaction Design hugely. Since Interaction Design is a part of User Experience, it is worth noting that VUIs require a strong focus on UX. The User experience is entirely dependent on the clarity and effectiveness of the voice interactions.