How You Should Approach Voice in 2021

Any computer software will need a user interface. Back in the days, the user interface was a punch card or a blinking cursor on a terminal window. Since that, Apple has been the forerunner in user interfaces and we’ve first learned to use a mouse to click on icons and other things on our screens and then to actually touch the icons by using our fingers.

The user experience has improved quite a lot and this has brought new users for computer software. In fact, most humans already use some kind of computers and most often than not, they are using a touch screen to do that.

It can be said that the user interfaces have developed in kind of paradigm shifts. If we omit the very early computers, the first paradigm was the keyboard. It enabled fast typing, but for instance drawing was almost impossible. The second paradigm came with the mouse. That enabled showing things to a computer - “this is the shape I’d like to draw” instead of only writing and describing things by using text. The last major paradigm shift was of course touch, which enabled smaller devices and intuitive gestures.

All paradigm shifts have made it easier to interact with a computer. While I can enjoy using a computer only with a terminal window and a keyboard, my mom would not do that. While my mom can (somewhat) use a mouse and a keyboard, my 2-year old nephew is already pretty proficient with an iPad.

But as touch screens and mouse have made the initial learning curve less steep, there are still a lot of things that you’d rather not do with either. Any power user will know that mastering keyboard shortcuts is the way to improve your efficiency with a computer. And if you are writing a school essay on the philosophy of science, you’d rather use a real keyboard instead of a touch screen on-screen-display.

Now we are approaching the next paradigm shift with the voice user interfaces. Again, this paradigm shift is making computers even easier to use. Instead of learning that by clicking a clock icon you’ll find a so called “application” that enables you to set an alarm, you can just say something like “set an alarm for tomorrow 7am”. Easy and intuitive.

Smart speakers and voice assistants are becoming ubiquitious with almost the same rate than mobile phones did. But are voice assistants the next paradigm shift? Probably no.

Voice should not be thought as a user interface, but a modality and a way to operate any user interface. While you can build a device (a smart speaker) that only functions through voice, that is as smart as building a computer with only a mouse or only a keyboard.

All user interaction modalities have their goods and bads. Mouse is great at pointing things, but it lacks in writing. Keyboard is great for typing, but it’s not very suitable for instance for selecting an area. Touch is great for its intuitiveness, but it lacks for more advanced use.

Every modality should be used so that it enhances other modalities. Mouse and keyboard is a great combo for efficient work stations for many use tasks. Voice and touch on the other hand can the best option when user is on the go.

Voice should not be thought as a platform but as a way to improve user experience in current applications. No matter what kind of application you are building, most probably there are some use tasks that could be improved by enabling voice.

For instance, while filling a form is by no means impossible on a smart phone, switching between input fields with appearing and disappearing on-screen keyboard is not fun. How about turning that into a voice form that user can control with touch and voice intermittenly?

Check out a demo on voice forms here

#voice #user-experience #user-interface