A Voice User Interface is a technology that allows the user to interact and give commands to smartphones, tablets, computers, or other digital devices. The interface uses voice recognition to understand our command and provides the answer accordingly. You can also say it converts text to speech to give you an answer. Some of its major examples are Google's Assistant, Microsoft's Cortana, Amazon's Alexa, and Apple's Siri.
The Voice User Interface is well-known for its unique features that provide more convenience to the users. The users don't need to type everything using the keyword, all they need to do is to give the voice command, and they will get their answer. You can use VUI to complete your day-to-day work like shopping, playing music, calling someone, setting alarms, reminders or timers, getting weather and traffic updates, etc.
How Does Voice User Interface Work?
A VUI gives you hand-free access to your system. You don't need to keep your focus on the system or device; if you are using Voice User Interface, just give the device a voice command, and you will get the answer you are looking for. It is a mixture of Automatic Speech Recognition, Name Entity Recognition, and complete Speech Synthesis.
Voice UIs mainly work on the principle of AI technology; both its backend infrastructure and Voice UIs speech components are based on AI. AI technology tries to understand your voice and the intent behind it to provide you with a return. So, AI technologies are the foundation of Voice UIs.
Note: In addition to the Voice UIs, a lot of companies also include GUIs, and Graphical User Interfaces, to provide their users with both sound and visual experience.
Voice User Interfaces have various types also; let's discuss that to understand more about them.
Types of Voice User Interface
The different types of VUIs are
- IVR
- Voice Command Device (VCD)
- Smart Speakers
- Multimodal VUIs
Now that you know about the types, let's discuss their purpose and other details.
| Type | Purpose | Output Channel | Input Channel | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IVR | Specific | Voice | Voice | Narrow |
| Voice Command Device (VCD) | Specific | Voice, Display | Voice | Narrow |
| Smart Speakers | Specific | Voice | Voice | Wide |
| Multimodal Voice UIs | Specific | All | All | Wide |
Benefits of Using Voice User Interface
Even after reading all these good parts about Voice UIs, if you still have any doubt about why to use VUIs, let us give you a list of advantages you have with Voice User Interface.
- Easy To Use
Not everyone is great with technology. There are many who find it difficult to use electronic devices, so for them, it's very easy to give voice commands instead of typing.
- Faster Than Other Ways
The process is much faster than typing, you just have to dictate the device, and you will get your solution.
- Hands-Free
At times, you get busy with things like cooking, riding bicycles, or with some other work, and you are away from your device; in those situations providing voice commands is much more practical than typing.
Voice User Interface Design Principles
There are five principles of the voice based user interface to give the user a better experience. However, the principles for both the voice interface and Visual interface are the same, and these can help in analyzing both the user intentions and interaction patterns.
Design The Structure According To The Specific Device
Before initiating the designing process, you must take care of your user. You must understand things according to the user's perspective, and know-how and where they are going to use the Voice UIs as the features and functionalities of Voice UIs of each device is different.
Note: You must make it the basis of your design process.
Also knowing where your user is actually using the feature can help you understand "How to design it in a better way?."
Suppose you are designing it for a device with no screen, then you have to understand that the device just works with a few buttons and maybe lights. But if you are designing it for a system or device with a screen, for example, a car screen, then you know the user has different visual features also. So, deciding the kind of features you are supposed to provide will be easier if you know about the device more.
Selecting An AI Platform
Every voice platform has some limitations with them. They do provide some unique and different technology, but they also have some restrictions with them. So you must take care of a few things before going further and deciding on an AI platform for your Voice User Interface.
Things To Take Care Of Before Selecting An AI Platform
- Internet Connection
Is it possible for the user to always connect their device to the Internet? If yes, then it's good, but if not then you have to take care and make it locally and fix it on devices.
- Processing Speed Of Your Device
You have to check the response speed expected by the user with the processing speed of your device.
If the user expects the speed to be quick, then you must provide extra processing power.
- Availability Of Multi Modes
You must know about what other modes of interaction the user has for your device or app.
- Multiple Environmental Testing
Your voice engine must be tested on different environments, that too at different times, in all the conditions. All the factors like indoor conditions, a lot of noise, and windy scenarios must be considered, as all these are important for a better Voice User Interface.
Design Your Voice User Interface According To Users' Need
Important: The success of Voice UIs depends more on psychological and emotional points.
When we are designing something for our users, we must take care of them and their needs, this is supposed to be the main priority of the designer. We need to understand their pain point and then provide them with a perfect solution.
Analyze your user to make sure you understand their mind. For better understanding, build a prototype and let the user test it to see if it fulfils their requirements or not, and observe the challenges it is facing. To understand more about people's perspectives about your Voice UIs, introduce it in front of people, and see how they react to it.
Note: The best way to examine the technology is to find the potential user of the issue and ask them about the difficulties they are facing, or let them try your voice solution, then observe how they respond.
User's Education
Remember the days when smartphones, tablets, or computers were introduced? It was tough to learn how to use them, right? The same goes for every new technology. People are not so familiar with Voice UIs right now.
User education is a crucial key to the success of any new technology. It helps them to understand How to use Voice UIs in the best way possible. Add a bit of emotional touch for the users. Let people try and use it for real-time problems like searching for weather forecasts, cooking recipes, etc., to learn how the Voice User Interface actually works.
Learn And Write Everything
The designer must write and observe everything about the technology, even if it fails in the market. This can help you in learning for the future. When in future you introduce something new, you must have ideas about the reason for the product's success and failure both, to know if it should be repeated or neglected in the future. The same goes for voice based user interfaces.
Conclusion
There is a lot more we have for you regarding the Voice User interface, if you want a detailed guide or you want someone to help you in designing your VUIs, you can reach our team of professional designers at Advology Solution. We are the Best Website Design Company In Gurgaon. Go through our website and call us at +91-8447813291, for more information about our service.
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