Will We Really Be Talking To Devices?
Amazon Alexa, the voice assistant of Amazon, was everywhere on CES 2017. Integrated in cars, refrigerators, assistant devices and more, there’s an emerging trend which requires us to talk to devices. But are we actually going to talk to machines on a structural level?
The first sales forecasts of the Amazon echo are good. Google’s voice assistant also had significant sales numbers last Christmas. Google’s voice enabled devices go far beyond their Google home device, and their latest smartphones are enabled with the Google assistant. Google is also integrating their assistant into TV’s.
Apple’s Siri is installed on every Apple device, and Microsoft Cortana is on every Windows 10 machine. There’s no doubt that the big tech companies want us to use voice enabled devices. While sales number are promising, they’re not the same as actual usage numbers. So the question remains, will we actually be using them?
“Sales numbers are not the same as numbers of actual usage.”
Obviously, there aren’t many numbers out there detailing the actual number of voice commands for any of these devices. Microsoft reported that 100 million people used Cortana on Windows 10 to answer 8 billion questions, but they didn’t specify how many were voice enabled and how many were typed.
In the meantime, Google announced that they’ll add keyboard support for Google assistant on their smartphones. This is an indication that Google thinks the usage of the smartphone assistant will increase with a keyboard function.
“Google thinks the usage of the smartphone assistant will increase with a keyboard function”
Are they right? Probably. As Business Insider stated, people feel often uncomfortable talking to devices. Yet there are also circumstances where they don’t mind it. These scenarios include being along, traveling in the car, or hanging out at home. Once people are around us, we stop talking to devices.
The feelings of discomfort outweigh the useful feelings of finding the information we need. Interesting to note: kids talk to voice assistants all the time.
At the moment, two things undermine voice enabled devices. First, the answers you get are the rewards of your interaction. If you don’t get the right answer, you don’t get rewarded for completing am uncomfortable action. This is a barrier to widespread adoption of voice enabled devices. In order to overcome the uncomfortable barrier, they need to produce great answers, the first time.
“If you don’t get the right answer, you don’t get rewarded for you uncomfortable action.”
The second barrier is that people are used to typing. We’re trained so well on keyboards, sometimes it’s faster and easier to type the question rather than asking it verbally. People choose the faster and easier mode of interaction. If typing is perceived as faster and easier, voice commands will remain a backup plan, reserved for times they’re unable to use their hands (i.e. driving, cooking, biking, etc).
What do you think? Will we really talk to devices? In my opinion, the technology needs time and answers to voice interactions need to improve. In the meantime, people will continue to use voice enabled technology as a backup plan when their hands are full.
