UCLIC Research Seminar Series

Voice has now become a mainstream interaction modality. It's therefore surprising how little we know about user centered issues, in particular how design guides a user's mental model (i.e. their partner model) and interaction behaviours. Current voice interfaces fundamentally rely on human conversation as an interaction metaphor, using human-like design to support partner model building. My talk will explore how VUI design shapes our beliefs of a machine partner's abilities, how these beliefs may drive language production in interaction and whether this interaction metaphor is actually appropriate as we strive for more conversational systems.