A 'Canny' Approach to Spoken Language Interfaces
This is an incremental position paper targeting developers and researchers in human-computer interaction to improve user engagement with voice interfaces.
The paper addresses the 'habitability gap' in voice-enabled devices like Amazon Echo, where users underutilize capabilities, by proposing a solution that aligns visual, vocal, behavioral, and cognitive affordances, drawing on the 'uncanny valley' concept.
Voice-enabled artefacts such as Amazon Echo are very popular, but there appears to be a 'habitability gap' whereby users fail to engage with the full capabilities of the device. This position paper draws a parallel with the 'uncanny valley' effect, thereby proposing a solution based on aligning the visual, vocal, behavioural and cognitive affordances of future voice-enabled devices.