Adaptable Utterances in Voice User Interfaces to Increase Learnability

Copyright © 2018 for this paper held by its author(s). Copying permitted for private and academic purposes. Abstract Voice User Interfaces (VUIs) are growing in popularity as a method of controlling smart home features. However, as VUIs grow in popularity, major obstacles still negatively impact their performance and user experience. Since VUIs are invisible by nature, users find it difficult to learn the supported features and verbal commands. Discovering the correct verbal commands is made more difficult since users have a verbiage preference and developers of VUIs cannot pre-program all possible commands. We propose adaptable verbal commands, termed adaptable utterances, and Open User Models (OUMs) as a method to allow customization of a VUI’s commands to match the individual user’s preference. We review relevant research on adaptive and adaptable VUIs and identify the limitations adaptable utterances and OUMs could address. Finally, we present a sample study design to evaluate our proposed methods.