Speech Technology - October 2008 - (Page 4)

MOSHE YUDKOWSKY INDUSTRY VIEW The Creepiness Factor Too much personalization in your IVR can lead to trouble he voice user interface (VUI) world divides into two Doesn’t this strike you as creepy? Not only has Fry basic camps: dentists and entertainers. Dentists almost lost sight of the idea that he’s talking to a machine, view the dialogue between the user and the system as but he argues with the IVR system. At the end: “After his something that both parties want to get over with as soon (its) last feeble effort to help me with some additional servas possible. Entertainers view the interaction as a miniper- ices, he (it) ended the call by telling me to have a nice day. formance staged for the benefit of the user. ‘You too, man,’ I replied before I could even stop myself.” I come down squarely on the side of the dentists. I don’t That last sentence will make the VUI designer proud, call interactive voice response systems because I’m bored. and well it should because it certainly met the marketing I call because I have a specific transaction in mind, and the goals. On the other hand, Fry seems to think in retrospect faster and more efficient the transaction the better. I don’t that the entire experience was creepy. want to hear about special offers, I don’t want to take surveys, and I don’t want to enter the same information over I Like It and over again. And I particularly don’t appreciate calls I’m not against personalization; in fact, I’m a strong advothat begin with You can access this information via our Web cate of it. If I call your IVR system every day and I always site because I wouldn’t have made the choose option 3, I would not mind if the phone call in the first place if I had an system offered me option 3 by default. If the system Internet connection. Bruce Balentine of Enterprise Integration seems omniscient, But I admit that I do see some sense in Group has done plenty of research showing users may find the experience regarding the dialogue as entertainment— that callers like a brisk, goal-directed diatoo creepy. specifically, as a magic show. Magicians logue that includes normal verbal courtemisdirect the audience’s attention through sies, but they don’t like dialogues that bright objects, hand motions, and pretty girls; the audience attempt to be their best friends. Too much personalization never notices the wires, hidden boxes, and subtle hand can lead to trouble. If the system seems omniscient, users may motions that cause the volunteer from the audience to pick find the experience too creepy. For example, when a New the one card out of the deck that makes the trick work. The York brokerage firm installed caller ID several years ago, it same holds true for VUIs: A good user interface subtly tries started to greet callers by name immediately: Good morning, to force the caller to use words in the system’s vocabulary. Mr. Jones. How are you today? Callers found this so disconcertThe other goal is to make the dialogue appear as smart as ing that the firm instructed its brokers to pretend they didn’t one that comes from a human agent. know who was calling. But I’m a dentist and not an entertainer because systems Balentine also told me about new dialogues that use spethat are too clever tend to become creepy. One demonstra- cific personal information, such as place of birth or prevition I heard a few years back had the oddest set of prere- ous residences, to verify identities. In postcall interviews, corded prompts that I have ever heard. If you ordered a pair callers use the exact word “creepy” to describe the dialogue. of boots, the system would say, Oh, those are great. My So how do you become a good dentist? At Bell Labs, I nephews really like those boots. I can cope with the idea that took a blue pencil to extraneous words in a dialogue to salespeople will lie, but a company that goes through the make the interaction more brisk. I justified my actions by trouble to create prerecorded lies? That’s just plain creepy. claiming—without factual support; I just made the number For another example, read a revealing article by Ben Fry up—that for each second I lopped off the dialogue, AT&T called “Talking to the Machine” on the Creative Loafing would save $1 million a month in connection charges. blog. Here’s an interesting bit of Fry’s description of his con- Internal customers accepted my reasoning, and the end versation with a male voice—which he calls “he (it)” product was quite successful. I was wrong about the cost because the dialogue was so lifelike—just after Fry declined savings; it wasn’t $1 million per month, it turned out to be to purchase any additional services: “He (it) paused, and in only $1 million per year. a barely concealed dejected tone, asked me why I wasn’t interested. I told him (it) I don’t need phone service because Moshe Yudkowsky, Ph.D., is president of Disaggregate Consulting and author of The Pebble and the Avalanche: How Taking Things Apart Creates Revolutions. I only use a cell phone and I had already called and placed He can be reached at speech@pobox.com. an order to transfer my cable service.” T 4 | Speech Technology OCTOBER 2008 www.speechtechmag.com http://www.speechtechmag.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Speech Technology - October 2008

Speech Technology - October 2008 Contents Editor’s Letter Industry View Inside Outsourcing Interact Keynoter Highlights the Shrinking Technological World Former Hacker Tackles IVR and Biometrics ‘Press 1’ for Caller Thoughts Soundbytes Voice Vote A New Dragon Emerges Overheard/Underheard An Emotional Mess Emotional Intelligence The Case for Call Recording Unified in Care and Communications An Education in E-Learning Guest Column Standards Speech Solutions Voice Value Forward Thinking

Speech Technology - October 2008

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