I was talking to my friend Rebecca the other day, comparing notes about teaching VUI design, and she blew my mind a little, talking about using students’ examples in class.
“I always ask their permission,” she told me, pointing out she does this for any detail of a student’s work, even when it’s already been shared with the class.
As my brain did a backflip, I could picture the faces of two students last year, both of whose work I’d used as a positive example and had not named. One had sat up and smiled on noticing I’d quote his assignment to point out a good way of solving a problem, obviously stoked about it. The other widened her eyes and went pale, slumping down in her seat as if to disappear, obviously not.
Neither student was named, and the class discussions immediately moved on. Still, it was disruptive, even just for a minute and only for a single student at a time. Considering that emotional distress is stuff that can stick with you for a lifetime, or that an action like this can trigger a reminder of a totally unrelated experience, why do it?
Rebecca agreed, adding that permission and having a conversation about consent has other subtler effects, namely that power dynamics are negociated instead of dictated. Cool.
This conversation totally reminded me of a small, subtle thing I experienced a couple of weeks before I finally got this blog started and I’d written myself a note about.
My partner went on a short trip for work, and I tagged along to take advantage of a free place to stay. On the last day we were running late due to her work schedule, which would cause us to be late for a reservation and also checking out of where we were staying.
The hotel was schmancy with an obnoxious bar on the roof with a DJ, so they were probably accustomed to people waltzing up to the front desk 4 hours after check out time. The restaurant was in an obnoxious neighborhood by the beach where people named Kardashian probably take selfies. We probably could have gotten away with not asking anything and just doing whatever.
But when I called the front desk an hour before check out and said we were running late and asked if it would be okay if we were a bit late, they were practically delighted. No kidding, they sounded so happy I thought I might be being made fun of on speaker phone or something. But when we showed up at our estimated check out, they knew who we were and smiled and greeted us and generally it was very pleasant to talk to them for a minute before we went back to Seattle and probably will never see them again.
Some people think the reason you tip a server is to ensure good service in the future. Especially in a bar or hotel. Some people think their job as a customer is to dole out rewards for a job well done, or withhold them as a sort of punitive training mechanism.
I disagree. In other countries, tips aren’t a significant percentage of a person’s wages, and in yet other places, there aren’t tips at all but strong social norms for how to show respect to people who help you or do things for you, so it’s easier to understand what “courtesy” means. A tip is a sort of shorthand and metaphor for things like permission and giving thanks. It says, “I see you,” or “I hear you,” and shows respect. It is a social convention.
This is massively important for voice experiences. We use the word “implicit” a lot in the biz, or say we’ll “infer” from a user’s actions or request wants and needs that aren’t explicitly spoken. Technically this is incorrect, because logical inference and implication has hard and fast rules, so we often are using the words metaphorically.
But I digress. Unlike interacting with a person, a device or virtual agent has only the context of the single interaction, or maybe a tiny bit more, like the last n minutes or interactions or turns in a given session. And that interaction was based on a probabilistic interpretation that could have been a false accept, or the user may have had to retry because of a false reject.
Why not ask permission? When we’re designing a seemingly simple interaction, there’s often a desire to have as few words as possible, or to reduce the number of turns, so this idea may meet some resistance; it might seem like “friction.” But friction can be good if it serves a purpose and adds value to your interaction.
If your system will be taking any action on behalf of your user with even potential safety or privacy implications, or social ones, you definitely should as permission. Likewise if the thing you’re doing has any legal implications for the user, however trivial, such as a service contract or user agreement. If you’ve decided to do something in addition to what the user requested because you believe it will be useful or valuable for them, asking permission is a great idea.
It shows your user respect, and that your system values what people value, being heard, and being seen. It might not always be necessary, but like when you ask permission for something that’s a courtesy, you will be reflecting an intelligence that is more than what can be interpreted and executed in code.
It’s not like confidence scoring to determine whether you confirm alphanumeric strings or transaction amount. It’s not the silent emanating of a software license protecting the needs of a corporation. It’s being humane.
And if you don’t need that, what the hell do you need a designer for?