Chapter 3. Conveying reassurance with confidence and confirmation
Chapter 8 from Voice UI Systems by Ann Thymé-Gobbel and Charles Jankowski
This chapter covers
- Understanding why and when reassurance is important
- Designing for reassurance in different contexts
- Choosing the right confirmation method for your users and task
- Implementing confirmation in VUI dialogs using webhooks
Every dialog depends on shared understanding. It’s as true for two people talking as when one participant is a computer. When you talk to someone, how do you know if you’re being understood or not? By the response. Those responses either reassure you that you’re understood or suggest that some correction is needed. When something’s really important, you might even check that your listener is paying attention, so you confirm that important information with your listener. And when you’re the listener, you’ll sometimes want to verify your understanding or show that you’re still listening. When you’re talking to someone on the phone and therefore can’t see each other’s faces and body language, verbal reassurance is even more necessary.
Reassurance is an important topic in voice development for three related reasons:
- for VUI accuracy, verifying that recognition and interpretation is correct
- for user confidence that the VUI got it right, contributing to user trust in the VUI
- for overall success, helping conversations reach their goal with minimal backtracking