Towards Inclusive Voice User Interfaces: A Systematic Review of Voice Technology Usability for Users with Communication Disabilities

Voice technology has the potential to empower users with disabilities to be independent, communicate, and access information. However, voice technology is not always accessible or usable for people with speech and language disabilities. A systematic literature review was conducted to identify the needs, pain points, and attitudes of users with speech and language disabilities towards consumer voice user interface products, such as virtual assistants and voice assistive technologies. Thematic analysis was used to highlight key opportunities to improve the voice user interface experience for users with speech and language disabilities. Common pain points include poor speech recognition accuracy, difficult to pronounce wake words, premature end point detection, rigid query language, poor error handling, lack of voice output customization, and lack of cross-product integration. These pain points decrease the usability of voice technology for users with communication disabilities and reinforce negative user sentiment. For voice user interface products to be truly accessible, the responsibility of accessibility must shift from the user to the product team. Considerations for inclusive voice user interface research and design are proposed.