I love what Ben is doing with this single-serving site (similar to my design principles collection)—it’s a collection of handy links and resources around voice UI:
Designing a voice interface? Here’s a useful list of lists: as many guiding principles as we could find, all in one place. List compiled and edited by Ben Sauer @bensauer.
BONUS ITEM: Have him run a voice workshop for you!
Merlin mentioned this service on a recent podcast episode. If you have an Amazon Echo, you can authenticate with this service and then point it at an RSS feed …like your Huffduffer feed, for example. From then on, Alexa becomes a Huffduffer player.
This 1993 article by Mark Weiser is relevant to our world today.
Take intelligent agents. The idea, as near as I can tell, is that the ideal computer should be like a human being, only more obedient. Anything so insidiously appealing should immediately give pause. Why should a computer be anything like a human being? Are airplanes like birds, typewriters like pens, alphabets like mouths, cars like horses? Are human interactions so free of trouble, misunderstanding, and ambiguity that they represent a desirable computer interface goal? Further, it takes a lot of time and attention to build and maintain a smoothly running team of people, even a pair of people. A computer I need to talk to, give commands to, or have a relationship with (much less be intimate with), is a computer that is too much the center of attention.
Ellen goes through the principles behind the tone of voice on the new Clearleft site:
- Our clients are the heroes and heroines, we facilitate their journey.
- Speak as an individual doing whatever it is you love. Expose lovable details.
- Use the imperative, kill the “-ing”.
- Be evocative and paint the picture. Show don’t tell.
- Be a practical friend.
- Be inquisitive. Ask smart questions that need solving.
Stéphanie has gathered a goldmine of goodies:
Articles, resources, checklists, tools, plugins and books to design accessible products
I can forgive our answer machines if they sometimes get it wrong. It’s less easy to forgive the confidence with which the bad answer is presented, giving the impression that the answer is definitive. That’s a design problem.
A presentation at An Event Apart Chicago 2019.