OpenMethods Blog

WAIT, don’t hang up!

admin — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 14:05:22 +0000

I was already familiar with the Tipping Point theories Malcolm Gladwell covered in his keynote speech at SpeechTEK East last month, but he presented several examples I had not previously heard. I hadn’t applied the theories to the speech space yet, but his examples struck a chord with me. The public perception of IVRs has gotten so bad that we’re now in the middle of a full blown backlash. We’ve conquered much of the technological problems holding us back and we’ve come up with some really good design guidelines based on years of usability research, but the reputation built upon years of user dissatisfaction is what’s getting us now. So I got to thinking. We need to come up with a product or service that can only be accessed through Voice. Something that is so compelling and new that a large market (perhaps teenagers) clamors for it, having never even thought of it before, and then put a voice only interface on it. Not just any voice interface, but the best of the best. Use the best technology all around and the best design, budget and legal issues be damned. But here’s the key, the way you access it, in this case via voice, is irrelevant, beside the point. It’s the “thing” itself, the product or service that compels people to use any means necessary to access it. This forces them to use the technology and see how good it can be while simultaneously taking the emphasis away from it.

This compares to Gladwell’s fundamental example about the first live sporting event on the radio. In that example, he shows how radio had already been around for awhile, people knew about it, the technology worked well, and there were even radio stations out there utilizing it, but the public wasn’t buying it. Why? Because the radio only brought them news, something they could already get on their own through several newspapers a day. It wasn’t until something totally new and unheard of was created – broadcasting the boxing match of the century over the radio – that people noticed that radios could do more. In this case, the product/service of getting to hear a live event at home rather than travel and pay to see it, was the compelling feature and the method through which to get it – using a radio – was beside the point. They wanted the live sporting events in their home and the radio was the only way to get it, so the next day they all went out and bought one! We need our own “boxing match” to make available via voice to get people past thinking voice is just a redundant bad method to bring them the same information they used to be able to get from live people.

As long as customers are making a comparison, like getting the news over the radio versus from their old reliable newspapers, we will lose, or at least it will take a lot longer to win. Let’s put our heads together and come up with that “killer app” as they say, but in a different way than we’ve been thinking of it before. This killer app has nothing to do with voice or customer service, but bursts on the scene like the ipod, texting. or YouTube , but in this case, it is a must have product that just happens to be accessed by voice. My backup plan is simpler. Let’s agree to start all our apps like this: “Welcome to . WAIT, don’t hang up!”.

–Simonie

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On the Phone with Moviefone

admin — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 13:58:56 +0000

I took another look at Moviefone recently because I heard they’ll be rolling out a new phone version soon. I wanted to document my specific gripes by way of comparison when that happens. I visited the website and saw that the online version of moviefone went through an overhaul this summer too and there is a blog about it on the site, but nothing positive is said there either. I wonder if they’ll have a similar feedback loop when they launch the new phone version. Speaking of which, I had the hardest time even getting a valid number to call moviefone. The “777FILM” is plastered everywhere, but no version of that phone number worked for me with any area code or toll free number. I finally found a St. Louis based number of 314 444 3456 by calling 5551212, but even for that I had to be handed off to a supervisor. What’s up with that? Also, my blackberry has a semi qwerty keyboard, which means I can’t dial things like 777FILM unless I see a traditional keypad to find the correct corresponding numbers. For this I used SJPhone, but it didn’t help. Anyway, here are my quick comments after a half hour chatting with moviefone.

1. Persona. The system never shuts up and with that exaggerated voice, it gets annoying. I understand it’s moviefone’s signature voice, but it can be toned down after the initial greeting. Look into Grice’s maxims or refer to Melanie Polkosky’s extensive research where she found that having an upbeat voice is a positive influence on user experience…up to a point.

2. Timeouts. System hangs up after preset number of noinputs, with no reason given as to why or an option for stopping that from happening, like press * or we will end this call. Very bad practice. Also, the rude and technical sounding error messages come up too quickly.

3. Menu Structure. After initially selecting a movie, I wanted to choose a different movie, but at this point the system will only offer doing it by name, not by browsing again as was listed in the main menu until you listen to the whole timeout error cycle again several (way too many, causing confusion, frustration and hangups) times. Need to add ability to browse at this point too. Also, If the caller enters a movie name and the system chooses a movie but that’s not what the caller wanted, there is nothing for the caller to do. It says “to hear showtimes, press 1 or to go back, press *, but * goes to genre selection instead of simply letting them select another movie by title or browsing until you listen to the whole timeout error cycle again etc. etc. In addition, Offering to find movie by genre is a good one but buried and callers may never even be aware of it. It should come in the main menu, but only after the main menu is pared down and classified better. Main menu would probably be “enter the name, enter the theatre, search by genre, or other information.”

4. Orientation. When you’ve exceeded the split second time limit here (even if the movie selected by the system is the one intended by the caller), the error message should be contextual saying” to hear showtimes for …” because it is now too far removed for the person to know what movie they’re talking about, especially if it wasn’t the one they intended.

New features:

1. Need a pause if not just to stop the system from constantly talking so you can’t think, but so people have a chance to grab pen and paper or write something down or ask a question of someone else with them about movies and times or remember the name of a movie.

2. New feature: Offer to download information to their phone, listings by theatre, by movie title in their area or ticket buying info.

–Simonie

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Missing the Point

admin — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 16:59:05 +0000

It’s not the technology and it’s not the designers, it’s the short-sighted, financially strapped vendors deploying systems that are responsible for the current negative atmosphere toward IVR in the public. Yes, technology used to be a problem, especially since expectations of HAL had to be overcome from the start. Yes, some designers have historically made poor decisions that have later been outed by countless usability studies and user surveys. However, today, technology from tts to speech rec and beyond is truly living up to its potential and even costs for deploying it has been dramatically reduced. In addition, designers have recognized the errors of their ways and are coming together to discuss their findings and publish recommendations based on them. Noone is out there today willingly and willfully deploying systems with 10 year old technology and design. However, 10 year old systems do remain out there because companies don’t have the funds or vision to replace or upgrade, instead choosing only to make the problem worse by adding pieces here and there that only add to the inconsistent, difficult to maneuver interfaces. Maybe every company can’t afford to completely revamp existing systems or buy the best of the best for every piece when starting anew, but it all exists now whereas before it wasn’t even an option. More can also be done with less these days. A truly great design will get around a lot of the older technology problems if you can’t put your money there and great technology can improve user satisfaction even when the design is still lackluster. Unfortunately, upgrading the ever expanding number of systems out there will take time and in the meantime, speech scientists are the public’s chosen whipping boys. For now.

-Simonie

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