Co-Designing Voice User Interfaces with Teenagers in the Context of Smart Homes

Abstract

This paper explores the design of voice user interfaces for smart homes with teenagers. The work was motivated by two research questions: How can we co-design voice interfaces with teenagers? and What ideas and expectations do teenagers have in relation to voice interfaces in a smart home? A design process was used which involved the participants initially scripting exchanges with a smart home on paper then prototyping at a higher level of fidelity using a tablet app with speech output. The study was carried out in a high school in the UK with 55 pupils in Year 10 (14-15 years old). This work is the first of its kind to explore the co-design of VUIs with teenagers. The key contribution of this paper is the design method that was used which proved successful and gave insights into the use of dual prototyping fidelities and the impact of scaffolding on the designs produced. Other contributions include the themes which emerged from the designs and a set of four themes related to teenagers’ expectation of smart homes. The wide range of findings reported in the paper also bring insights that are valuable to those wishing to design and develop VUIs with and for younger users.