Challenges and Opportunities Designing Voice User Interfaces for Emergent Users

Human Computer Interfaces and Interaction has been a topic of research for many decades. In the case of voice-based interactions, the earlier investigations were based on Plain Old Telephone System (POTS) systems. Developed country-originated research was also about Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic (WEIRD) users. However, the past few decades have seen the rise and deployment of wireless telecom and data networks with better capabilities even in developing countries such as India. This has also been supported by the ease of availability of smart devices such as smartphones and smart speakers. The deployment of these technologies has also concerned a very large number of Emergent Users (EU). Voice being a very natural and easy-to-use mode of interaction for EU, we believe it merits an independent investigation especially since Adoption of Graphical User Interface (GUI) designs, for EU, has been challenging beyond the initial phase of Availability. Today, designers are adapting GUI designs to Voice User Interface (VUI) design and hence we feel that VUI designs for EU may be riddled with the same issues as GUI design for EU. Additionally, voice as a medium has distinctive design implications as compared to visual display units. Along with these aspects, the design contexts of EU are vastly different from those of WEIRD users. In this paper, we highlight potential challenges we foresee for VUI for EU and the opportunity for developing design artefacts such as frameworks, tools, design patterns, models, and theories for increasing adoption of VUI by EU.