Using our voice to access information has been part of science fiction ever since the days of Captain Kirk talking to the Star Trek computer. Today, with powerful smartphones and cloud-based computing, science fiction is becoming a reality. Recent years have witnessed a rise in users talking to their smart devices instead of typing to perform various actions or get specific results. More consumers are using voice queries to perform search answers, find local businesses, search products online, and many more. According to PwC, 65% of 25-49-year-olds speak to voice-enabled devices at least once a day.
What is VUI and how does it work?
A voice UI combines several Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies, including Speech Synthesis, Automatic Speech Recognition,and Named Entity Recognition. With the advancements in speech-to-text technology and the device processing powers improving, these voice-based assistants have become a go-to option for most tasks. Changes in user behavior have also resulted in a rise in voice-based searches. People have now started using assistants for searching the internet and performing actions.
Voice Interface on Applications or Websites
Voice Interface is rarely available when it comes to applications and websites. Why? While researching, we observed that the unavailability of developer tools has been the main reason for not adopting a voice interface. E-commerce companies can tap into the growing voice market by integrating voice interfaces into their current websites and applications. In fact, brands must leverage the increasing usage of digital assistants and voice recognition tech to adapt to consumers’ growing need for convenience.
Voice User Interface: Advantages and Disadvantages
Benefits of Voice User Interface
- Faster than typing: Dictating takes lesser time than typing a text query, making it more convenient for users.
- Ease of use: Not everyone gets along well with technological devices. But any user can use voice UI to request a task from VUI devices or AI assistants
- Synonyms: If you want your users to filter by categories, you’ll need to have each of the categories somehow visible in the user interface. Because of this, you have to decide on the most important types. VUI doesn’t have this drawback
- Accessibility for everyone: IT can be used by as broad a cross-section of people as possible. VUIs enable people with disabilities (e.g., visual impairments or repetitive stress injuries) to access devices and apps without relying on a visual interface.
- Voice search is multilingual: Voice search technology supports multiple languages. So, language is no more a barrier for voice search marketing.
Challenges in Voice User Interface
- Privacy concerns: Potential privacy violations of a VUI concerns some users.
- Misinterpretation & lack of accuracy: Voice recognition software still has its flaws. The software cannot understand and interpret the context of the language, which causes errors and misinterpretation.
- Public spaces: It can be hard to give voice commands to devices and AI assistants in public areas for privacy and noise issues.
Why VUI Matters to Digital Marketers and Business Owners?
User Interface (UI) is the communication medium that makes user interaction possible between machines and humans. In 2021, there were 120.4 million voice assistant users in the United States alone, which is 46.2 percent of the population, as per Statista. Not only that, but the usage of voice-controlled smart speakers is also on the rise.
This expanding popularity of voice interfaces particularly interests UX and UI designers. After all, the ultimate goal of both is to answer users’ needs and make the experience easy-flowing for them.
Conclusion
Designers and developers need to study the details of complicated human communication to create a successful Voice User Interface. It differs from a tangible user interface, which requires interactions with physical gestures, such as typing, tapping, or swiping. In the end, the ultimate goal for designers and developers is to make the user experience better.
Nous Infosystems offers deep expertise in digital experience design, user interface engineering, and development. Learn how our expert design consultants can help leverage the growing usage of voice recognition AI to fulfill consumers’ changing expectations and deliver easy-flowing user experiences.
