Designloom @ CMU – Interaction Design @ Carnegie Mellon University

01. Idea Generation
Initial Concepts and DebatesProject - A4 Voice User Interface

Kaya Voice User Interface from Juliana Diaz on Vimeo.

02. Getting Started with Kaya
The Huila Training Model

Grading Criteria
Process
• Did the students follow a rigorous design process and demonstrate how that
process informs their final designs?
• Did the students select an interesting task and (socia) context for their
design?
• Did they do a good job of generating design implications from the readings
and integrating them into their designs?
Solution
• Is it believable that users’ lives would be significantly improved through the
proposed solution?
• Does the proposed solution take an appropriate form and provide
appropriate feedforward and feedback?
• Does the proposed solution take into account the social setting in an
appropriate way?
Craft
• Visual appeal of interim research artifacts and presentations
• Visual appeal of final presentation
• Production quality of the video sketch
• Visual appeal of process materials
Presentation
• Motivation for design
• Rationale for solution based on process
• Communication of the concept
• Great pitch and dramatic finish

The idea behind Kaya is that this system cuts down training to only a week, as opposed to a process that takes an average of 2-3 weeks with competitors. This would greatly cut down on the cost of training per employee, and reduce employee turn-over greatly, because the process would be much less stressful for trainees.

Project - A4 Voice User Interface

1. Coffee Shop Ordering System
* PROs:
o Speeds up the ordering process
o Expedites the training process
o Automated system is able to queue up orders and distribute them among available baristas
o Reduces lines
o Voice recognition allows for personalized experiences
o Can translate to food-ordering processes in general
* CONs:
o Potentially dehumanizing
o Menu relies on visual support
o Addressing a person with no prior knowledge
2. College Campus 4-1-1
* PROs:
o Call number accessible to people on the go, when needing information but aren’t in front of their computers (and no smart phone)
o Easily able to access data that isn’t on GPS systems (specific room locations, office location, people’s contact information, etc.)
o Comfortable conversational system to a young user group
* CONs:
o Lacks structure as an interface (relatively uninteresting design problem)
3. Diabetic Status Tracker
* PROs:
o They are usually supposed to track blood sugar levels to show doctors, and they dont
o System that stores and reports results
o Voice input is good for user group
o System analysis of tracking trends and possible recommendations if levels are not where they are supposed to be
* CONs:
o Because the system is technically a machine, it can be scary in terms of trusting the system too much
o Later: found out a very similar project had been done by a CMU Service Design team in Spring 2009
4. Foreign Language Tool
* PROs:
o Tool to help user understand English better
o Helps with understanding pronunciation
o Helps with meaning
o Define, usage, possible pronunciation
* CONs:
o Accents and how to deal with pronunciations becomes increasingly complicated
o Is it about the user with learning a word or knowing the word?
o How to handle initial input– written or spoken?
o Lack of structure in system
5. Kid Reading and Learning Tool
* PROs:
o Tool can help kids read through text
o Can detect if word is mispronounced
o Can be a reading practicing tool
o Track kid’s improvement by how fast he or she reads though a page
* CONs:
o Dehumanizing
o Later: found Project LISTEN– far too similar concept

In this assignment, we will prototype a voice user interface (VUI) that accounts
for the social setting. Designing a visual interface is not necessary, but you may
link yours to an existing product, such as a mobile phone with a keypad.
Students will conduct initial research on auditory displays and voice user
interfaces, will generate design implications from that research, and will design
and evaluate an information architecture and demonstrational vignettes of a
conversational usesr interface that reflect this knowledge. The prototype can be
designed for one of three contexts of use:
• Training. A VUI system assists a user or users with a work procedure (for
example, working in a fast food restaurant, filing medical claims, etc.
• Providing service. A VUI system assists a user or users in a service transaction
(for example, airlines, health insurance, hotel reservations, etc.)
• Object management. A VUI system assists a user or users in managing and
processing physical objects (for example, warehouse order picking, car parks,
dry cleaners, etc.)
In all of these contexts, you should design for either 1) one user with other
people present, thinking about privacy and managing side conversations, or
2) multiple users engaging with the system (thinking about multitasking, user
identification and feedback about who is doing what).
The goals of this project are as follows:
• to conduct research on speech and conversational user interfaces;
• to generate design recommendations for conversational user interfaces;
• to explore creating information archtecture for a VUI system;
• to test assumptions and initial designs with speed dating;
• to create demonstrational vignettes and prototypes, using a video sketch.
The deliverables for this project are as follows:
• summary research document with design recommendations (one for the whole
class);
• IA of how the system works
• scenarios of use that demonstrate 1-2 vignettes of the system;
• findings from a speed dating session of your concept;
• video sketch featuring scenario and demonstrational prototype for key
functions in your system.

Design Process
Teams will follow a design process that includes:
• You will select a target context and audience. You are encouraged to find a very
narrow application range and to focus on a user group you have easy access to.
You will need to access your target for research, validation, and most likely your
video sketch. You can develop your own strategy for conducting user research.
You should construct a plan based on the information and insights needed to
complete the project on time. In some cases, this may mean constructing find-
ings from your own past experience as an employee or a recipient of a service.
• You must also understand the state of the art in terms of technology that you
will be developing. Each member of the class will conduct some aspect of a
literature review, and use what they find to create design implications for how to
design a VUI system.
• You will distill a set of functional, social, emotional, and aesthetic needs based
on their user research. You will engage in ideation, generating multiple concepts
that articulate a preferred state. The goal is to identify the most critical needs
and the issues surrounding these needs. You will generate a small set of
concepts (3-5) that capture the reduced set of needs.
• You will conduct a speed dating user enactment session to assess the validity
of your concepts. The goal is to find the overlap between the observed needs the
team has identified and the needs users perceive in themselves, and to test the
flow and usefulness of your perceived solution.
• You will generate a video sketch consisting of a 1-2 vignettes that document
how the VUI improves the quality of people’s lives for a task within the chosen
context.
• You will produce a web process document that details your design process,
research methods and findings, insights, final design solution, and rationale for
this solution.
• Social setting: How does your design account for the social setting?
Design Considerations
• User-driven or system driven: is the interaction initiated and managed by the
user(s) or the system? How do people feel in control, and know who is managing
an interaction at any given time?
• Acquisition of skill: Do people desire to acquire a skill or do they just want to
complete a task? For example, spelling checkers are designed to help people
produce error free documents, not to become better spellers. What about some-
one in the workplace? What are the meanings and values connected between
the activity and the skills people desire?
• Change in needs cver time: Should systems and services adapt as people
use them over time? For example, those who ride a bus route daily need to only
know how many minutes late the bus might be. New riders will need to know the
route times and locations.

When starting the project, our group generated ideas for interesting contexts and users for Voice User Interfaces. We discussed the pros and cons of each idea.

Kaya works in a cyclical flow, with a cashier taking in orders from the customer and inputs it into a register, which then goes to Kaya, who delivers these orders to available or able Baristas, who make the drink and give the order to the customer.

01. Kaya Flow
The Flow Model

Article Source : Project - A4 Voice User Interface