The use of speech as an interaction modality has grown considerably through the integration of Intelligent Personal Assistants (IPAs- e.g. Siri, Google Assistant) into smartphones and voice-based devices (e.g. Amazon Echo). Such engineering advances in speech processing present a unique opportunity for enabling users to interact with interface in a truly conversational way. However, we have yet to see current voice-enable interface fully becoming Conversational User Interfaces (CUIs) as afforded by the underlying speech and natural language capabilities. For example, from a conversational / dialogue perspective, there remain significant gaps in using theoretical frameworks to understand user behaviors and choices and how they may be applied to specific speech interface interactions. On a design and Human-Computer Interaction level, we don’t yet have the proper tools such as validated design guidelines to help us improve the usability of such interfaces.

On the other hand, over the past years, users of technology experienced a shift from being limited to stationary desktop computers to being “on the go” - while riding a bike or driving a car. In this workshop, we want to share our experiences on creating mobile voice-user interfaces and learn from other voice-user interface researchers to identify common problems, challenges, and possibilities for advancing mobile voice-user interfaces.

 

Through our “voice on the go” workshop, we want to first bring the community of interested researchers in voice-interaction for mobile scenarios together. As a community, we want to identify common problems, define upcoming challenges, and explore possibilities for mobile voice-user interfaces. By bringing together voice-user interface designers, developers, and researchers, we aim to build a community that advances the field of voice-user interfaces for mobile scenarios through joint future collaborations.