Recent Trends in Voice UI

Voice interaction is the largest UX challenge for designers when it comes to designing a VUI. An Important aspect is that VUI design still applies to the most fundamental UI design principles we use when we produce GUI products. Below are some trends to shape VUI design in the decades to come.

At its heart, communication is always the concept involved in interaction. Human-Computer Interaction needs to be as streamlined as possible and so the future of user interface design is Voice User Interfaces (VUIs).

An interface is only a medium that interacts with a system — be it a GUI, VUI or anything else. So why does VUI matter so much? Firstly, because conversation is a form of communication everyone understands and it's very fascinating. It's a natural way to interact. Instead of technology, people associate voice communication with others.

No symbols or new terminology (GUI language) needs to be interpreted by users, but they can use English (or any other mother tongue) to run with the system. This does not mean that users do not need to know how to use a system, but that the learning curve is significantly reduced.

Second, the expectations of users change. Research states that 39 percent of people used voice search for searching on smart-phones. This audience will be ready to adopt VUI systems at the first place. In-fact the VUI is turning to be a very important part of AI Software Development.

Top VUI Trends

Voice interaction is the largest UX challenge for designers when it comes to designing a VUI. An Important aspect is that VUI design still applies to the most fundamental UI design principles we use when we produce GUI products. Below are some trends to shape VUI design in the decades to come.

VUI That Trust

Trust can help build a connection between an individual and a machine. If trust is lacking, user interactions with a specific voice user interface will not be great. VUI should make it clear to the person that what he/she have demanded is interpreted exactly. This goal can be achieved by focusing on improving speech accuracy (more sophisticated NLP algorithms).

It is important to concentrate on understanding the intent of the user (an initial reason for interacting). When users interact with a system, they experience a specific problem that they want to solve, and the designer's goal is to understand the problem.

Contextually driven flows are created. While all commands that users may ask the system cannot be predicted, designers must at least design a context-driven user flow. At each stage of a conversation, the system should anticipate users' intent and give users information about their next step. Find a restaurant near the user, for example. The system should exactly match what the user is looking for when users search for a restaurant.

Importance of User Management

The system should take into account the natural limitations of the human brain. There should be overwhelming information provided by the system. Most users remember only the last sentence when they hear the system response. Therefore, it is better to remain away from long sentences or to offer a dozen different options while the user is able to remember only a few at once.

With appropriate feedback, the system should react to a user's request. This feedback should give users an overview of what the system is doing. For instance, visual feedback let the user realize that the system is ready to listen, or in POD (Process of Development). The system displays a POD if a user sends a request to the system. It doesn't just state that users have to wait while a system does something but it provides valuable information of what the system does. POD is not a loading animation. A POD may look like someone looking for the right files in storage for a command when pulling a file from Dropbox, for example.

High Adaptability

Adaptive UI (also referred to as AUI) is a User Interface (UI) that adapts to user's or context requirements. Future VUI will be adapted to users— the system will analyze all the user information it has (including the current information on the mental condition and health) and the current context in order to answer user requests. By using the available AI Software Solutions, it is possible to render a high level of adaptability.

For instance, if a person has high blood pressure and decides to set a conference in 2 hours, the digital assistant may suggest that this should be avoided, or it may suggest the exercise that lowers blood pressure before a conference begins. The visual designers have a lot of options to introduce their personality on graphic user interfaces-font, color, image, motion, etc.

VUI That Conveys Personality

Designers can communicate personality by playing with words, voices, and tones as well as using language itself. A voice is part of the person and shapes his identity. It becomes part of its identity when we have combined a voice with something. And when we interact with such an interface, as when we interact with real people, we experience emotions. People want comprehensible voices–not just human voices.

The interactions of human-computer deviate from conversations from but users expect more. Most Artificial Intelligence Solutions currently available are still restricted to narrow AI — these systems use machine learning to solve a (and in most cases too narrow) clearly defined problem. Apart from training data, narrow AIs have zero knowledge. It means that the system will not solve the problem itself when a user wants to solve a slightly different problem.

General intelligence is not restricted to narrow domains in comparison with Narrow AI. Learning is the basis of GI systems— the fundamental difference between Narrow AI and General AI is that the system of GI learning is not specifically programmed (machines learn by their own). GI uses two types of learning: unsupervised learning (when a system uses all available data to solve a user problem) and supervised learning (when a system first requires user support). Another difference is that a system for General AI can learn to use other AIs to specific and general purposes. Different machine learning models can, therefore, be trained and collaborated. An advanced NLP GI system can learn from the first attempt by combining and processing data from various data source

Thus, we have seen the recent trends in VUI that are going to affect the UI domain. If you are also a company rendering Artificial Intelligence Services, you should go for VUI integrated websites and applications.

Summary

This article portrays the recent trends in Voice UI technology and the impact they are going to render on the contemporary UI technology.