Progressivity for voice interface design

Fischer, Joel E.; Reeves, Stuart; Porcheron, Martin; Sikveland, Rein Ove

Abstract

Drawing from Conversation Analysis (CA), we examine how the orientation towards progressivity in talk--keeping things moving--might help us better understand and design for voice interactions. We introduce progressivity by surveying its explication in CA, and then look at how a strong preference for progressivity in conversation works out practically in sequences of voice interaction recorded in people's homes. Following Stivers and Robinson's work on progressivity, we find our data shows: how non-answer responses impede progress; how accounts offered for non-answer responses can lead to recovery; how participants work to receive answers; and how, ultimately, moving the interaction forwards does not necessarily involve a fitted answer, but other kinds of responses as well. We discuss the wider potential of applying progressivity to evaluate and understand voice interactions , and consider what designers of voice experiences might do to design for progressivity. Our contribution is a demonstration of the progressivity principle and its interactional features, which also points towards the need for specific kinds of future developments in speech technology.

Citation

Fischer, J. E., Reeves, S., Porcheron, M., & Sikveland, R. O. (2019). Progressivity for voice interface design. In CUI '19: Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Conversational User Interfaces (1–8). https://doi.org/10.1145/3342775.3342788

• Presentation Conference Type: Edited Proceedings
• Conference Name: 1st International Conference on Conversational User Interfaces
• Start Date: Aug 22, 2019
• End Date: Aug 23, 2019
• Publication Date: Aug 22, 2019
• Deposit Date: Jul 1, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 15, 2019
• Journal: CUI 2019
• Pages: 1–8
• Book Title: CUI '19: Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Conversational User Interfaces
• ISBN: 9781450371872
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3342775.3342788
• Keywords: Voice; Speech; Conversation Analysis; Design; VUI
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2248081
• Publisher URL: https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=3342775.3342788
• Related Public URLs: https://www.cui2019.com/
• Contract Date: Jul 1, 2019