Even though a blog is implicitly a vehicle of shameless self-promotion, I forgot to mention that I’m giving a talk at AVIOS Conversational Interactions Tuesday afternoon!
It’s my first time giving a talk at an event like this, so I’ve got the conference jitters, but I’m confident I’ll start (and continue) conversations as well as leaving folks with something to think about.
If you are interested in going and you haven’t already registered to attend, email me and I can share with you a code for $200 off registration fees.
Here’s what I’ll be talking about:
I’ve been thinking about empathy and feelings a lot lately. Voice user interface (VUI) designers and linguists frequently observe that common sense ideas about language lead to misunderstanding about what we can and can’t do with our brains when it comes to talking and listening. Liz Jackson’s talk at Interaction ’19 got me thinking when she suggested we should question what is wholesome. She talks about empathy and how beliefs that we’re doing the right thing can have implications that are counter intuitive and actually do harm.
As language users we have conscious awareness and voluntary control of some aspects of our behavior, but not of others. This includes how our beliefs and our experiences shape what we perceive. And yet, because we’re aware of some aspects of this, we believe we’re aware of all of them. Starting with Dori Turnstall’s notion of respectful design – “acknowledging different values, different manners of production, and different ways of knowing” in her words – I will discuss how from a cognitive perspective the inversion of this is necessary when we approach voice interaction design. Incorporating ideas from cognitive science, philosophy and linguistics I will discuss the responsibility of voice designers as insiders to the brain’s processes, and how they’re influenced by bias and beliefs, especially including our own, and how we can do right by people when we do voice design, ethically, and responsibly.
See you there!