Advanced Voice User Interface Design Workshop

[Former title: Voice User Interface Design (VUI) - Intensive] The Voice User Interface Design Intensive course combines critical elements of the design process to streamline knowledge transfer so participants can successfully design and test speech applications for maximum caller success. The course draws upon the experience and knowledge of the Nuance Professional Services team to identify key skills and define best design and testing practices. The course teaches participants how to achieve the promised objectives of speech recognition -- improving customer satisfaction while reducing costs. We provide an in-depth look at advanced disambiguation strategies, confirmation options, and advanced error and universal prompting strategies. Through a series of lectures and extensive hands-on exercises, participants gain experience necessary to effectively design using these powerful dialog strategies. Optimization sections teach participants the role of the User Experience in maximizing automation rates, ROI, and caller satisfaction. The relative merits and requirements of the various testing and research methods are explained using “real life” case studies taken from Nuance Professional Services engagements. The course also offers advice on how to respond when design decisions are challenged and techniques that save you time and rework. Participants gain experience that will raise the level of design work on the job.

• Identify major business requirements
• Identify major caller requirements
• Create a high-level description of the application
• Develop a high-level VUI design strategy that creates a framework for the detailed dialog design and meets the business, caller, and application requirements.
• Develop high-level call flows that meet the business, caller, and application requirements.
• Write sample dialogs that apply the design principles and meet the requirements.
• Interpret and utilize usability testing data to improve the design.
• Develop the detailed Dialog Design Specification that meets the business, caller, and application requirements, including:
  • Specify application logic, including state descriptions, special features, exit and entry states, etc.
  • Define system behavior including universal, error handling, disambiguation, n-best and skiplist strategies
  • Determine the grammar needs and attributes
  • Defend design choices
• Identify the optimal dialog strategy for confirming caller input (information grouping, 3-tier, explicit, and implicit confirmation)
• List common design mistakes made when creating confirmation dialogs
• Create designs utilizing confirmation dialogs according to best practices
• Identify dialogs suited for applying N-Best to enhance performance
• Avoid making common dialog design mistakes when using N-Best
• Create N-Best based dialog designs to enhance application performance
• Avoid common error and universal prompting mistakes
• Understand why the caller experience affects automation
• Identify the key caller experience and usability activities
• Create a usability plan to ensure high caller acceptance and automation rates

• Voice user interface designers
• Caller experience or human factors engineers
• Staff who are responsible for customer satisfaction metrics

1. Introduction
2. Understanding the caller experience
3. Gathering requirements
4. Initiating early research
5. Developing the Requirements Definition document
6. Defining the business, caller and application requirements
7. Designing the high-level VUI design strategy
   • Defining the metaphor
   • Defining the persona
   • Defining the audio environment

Day 2

1. Creating the call flows
2. Writing sample dialogs
3. Analyzing usability test results
4. Creating the detailed Design Specification

Day 3

1. Advanced Dialog Design Techniques
   • Defining the system behavior
   • Writing the system messages
   • Defining the grammar needs

Day 4

1. Obtaining caller feedback
2. Testing the initial design
3. Validating the coded design
4. Obtaining feedback at initial deployment
5. Monitoring caller feedback post deployment
6. Creating a plan for success
7. Course wrap-up

• Introduction to Speech Recognition (eCampus) or equivalent knowledge
• Fundamentals of Voice User Interface Design (eCampus)