Magnus Hamann and I wrote a provocation paper for the third conference on Conversational User Interfaces 2021.
In it, we argue (hopefully provocatively), that voice user interface designers should stop using wake words like “Alexa” and “Hey Siri” crowding each other outside the smart home voice environment. Our point is that, as an interface element, wake words are misleading to users who seem to treat them like a fully interactional call, when they are actually nothing more than a glorified ‘on’ button.
We had a very positive response from the technically inclined audience at the conference. I find this surprising especially since wake words are so ubiquitous and important to the branding and functionality of today’s voice interfaces that it seems hard to imagine them being phased out in favor of something more mundane.
You can read the full paper on the ACM site, or the preprint here.
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