Coimagining the Future of Voice Assistants with Cultural Sensitivity

Abstract

Voice assistants (VAs) are becoming a feature of our everyday life. Yet, the user experience (UX) is often limited, leading to underuse, disengagement, and abandonment. Co-designing interactions for VAs with potential end-users can be useful. Crowdsourcing this process online and anonymously may add value. However, most work has been done in the English-speaking West on dialogue data sets. We must be sensitive to cultural differences in language, social interactions, and attitudes towards technology. Our aims were to explore the value of co-designing VAs in the non-Western context of Japan and demonstrate the necessity of cultural sensitivity. We conducted an online elicitation study ( <a:math xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M1"><a:mi>N</a:mi><a:mo>=</a:mo><a:mn>135</a:mn></a:math> ) where Americans ( <c:math xmlns:c="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M2"><c:mi>n</c:mi><c:mo>=</c:mo><c:mn>64</c:mn></c:math> ) and Japanese people ( <e:math xmlns:e="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M3"><e:mi>n</e:mi><e:mo>=</e:mo><e:mn>71</e:mn></e:math> ) imagined dialogues ( <g:math xmlns:g="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M4"><g:mi>N</g:mi><g:mo>=</g:mo><g:mn>282</g:mn></g:math> ) and activities ( <i:math xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M5"><i:mi>N</i:mi><i:mo>=</i:mo><i:mn>73</i:mn></i:math> ) with future VAs. We discuss the implications for coimagining interactions with future VAs, offer design guidelines for the Japanese and English-speaking US contexts, and suggest opportunities for cultural plurality in VA design and scholarship.

Topics & Concepts