Voice interfaces in everyday life

Voice User Interfaces (VUIs) are becoming ubiquitously available, being embedded both into everyday mobility via smartphones, and into the life of the home via ‘assistant’ devices. Yet, exactly how users of such devices practically thread that use into their everyday social interactions remains unde...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Porcheron, Martin, Fischer, Joel E., Reeves, Stuart, Sharples, Sarah
Format: Conference or Workshop Item
Language:English
Published: ACM 2018
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/49153/
_version_ 1848797934106181632
author Porcheron, Martin
Fischer, Joel E.
Reeves, Stuart
Sharples, Sarah
author_facet Porcheron, Martin
Fischer, Joel E.
Reeves, Stuart
Sharples, Sarah
author_sort Porcheron, Martin
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description Voice User Interfaces (VUIs) are becoming ubiquitously available, being embedded both into everyday mobility via smartphones, and into the life of the home via ‘assistant’ devices. Yet, exactly how users of such devices practically thread that use into their everyday social interactions remains underexplored. By collecting and studying audio data from month-long deployments of the Amazon Echo in participants’ homes—informed by ethnomethodology and conversation analysis—our study documents the methodical practices of VUI users, and how that use is accomplished in the complex social life of the home. Data we present shows how the device is made accountable to and embedded into conversational settings like family dinners where various simultaneous activities are being achieved. We discuss how the VUI is finely coordinated with the sequential organisation of talk. Finally, we locate implications for the accountability of VUI interaction, request and response design, and raise conceptual challenges to the notion of designing ‘conversational’ interfaces.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T20:11:45Z
format Conference or Workshop Item
id nottingham-49153
institution University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus
institution_category Local University
language English
last_indexed 2025-11-14T20:11:45Z
publishDate 2018
publisher ACM
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling nottingham-491532020-05-08T12:00:33Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/49153/ Voice interfaces in everyday life Porcheron, Martin Fischer, Joel E. Reeves, Stuart Sharples, Sarah Voice User Interfaces (VUIs) are becoming ubiquitously available, being embedded both into everyday mobility via smartphones, and into the life of the home via ‘assistant’ devices. Yet, exactly how users of such devices practically thread that use into their everyday social interactions remains underexplored. By collecting and studying audio data from month-long deployments of the Amazon Echo in participants’ homes—informed by ethnomethodology and conversation analysis—our study documents the methodical practices of VUI users, and how that use is accomplished in the complex social life of the home. Data we present shows how the device is made accountable to and embedded into conversational settings like family dinners where various simultaneous activities are being achieved. We discuss how the VUI is finely coordinated with the sequential organisation of talk. Finally, we locate implications for the accountability of VUI interaction, request and response design, and raise conceptual challenges to the notion of designing ‘conversational’ interfaces. ACM 2018-04-21 Conference or Workshop Item PeerReviewed application/pdf en https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/49153/1/Voice%20Interfaces%20in%20Everyday%20Life.pdf Porcheron, Martin, Fischer, Joel E., Reeves, Stuart and Sharples, Sarah (2018) Voice interfaces in everyday life. In: ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2018), 21-26 Apr 2018, Montreal, Canada. Amazon Echo; conversational agent; conversational user interface; conversation analysis; intelligent personal assistants; ethnomethodology; collocated interaction https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=3173574.3174214 10.1145/3173574.3174214 10.1145/3173574.3174214 10.1145/3173574.3174214
spellingShingle Amazon Echo; conversational agent; conversational user interface; conversation analysis; intelligent personal assistants; ethnomethodology; collocated interaction
Porcheron, Martin
Fischer, Joel E.
Reeves, Stuart
Sharples, Sarah
Voice interfaces in everyday life
title Voice interfaces in everyday life
title_full Voice interfaces in everyday life
title_fullStr Voice interfaces in everyday life
title_full_unstemmed Voice interfaces in everyday life
title_short Voice interfaces in everyday life
title_sort voice interfaces in everyday life
topic Amazon Echo; conversational agent; conversational user interface; conversation analysis; intelligent personal assistants; ethnomethodology; collocated interaction
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/49153/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/49153/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/49153/