by Janus Boye
With spoken content fast becoming a preferred way to get information, how will you prepare your content when navigation becomes negotiation and when links, calls to action, and breadcrumbs become a matter of aural and verbal gestures?
Preston So has written the first-ever book from A Book Apart about voice interface design. It's also the first-ever book to hit bookshelves about voice content, with everything you need to know about voice content strategy and voice content design.
Preston joined us in a recent member conference call and shared much more about the exciting new book: Voice Content and Usability.
Below you can find the notes from the call and also the entire recording.
Voice content is different
To get us started, Preston talked about conversational design and how voice is an easy-to-use interface. Much easier and intuitive than typing on a keyboard. Conversations are really the oldest type of interface there is. For more on conversations, Preston recommended Erika Hall’s book: Conversational Design.
Voice content is not the same as web content though. Voice content as its core is about interaction. He mentioned two types of voice interaction:
Transactional, like when you use an interface like Alexa or Google Home to order a pizza
Informational, when you use a similar interface to ask about museum opening hours
Preston called also referred to voice content as context-less microcontent. As he said, voice content needs to be understandable to a listener, not only a reader.
Another final difference is that you need to think about content discoverability. Voice content works with flows and not links.
The Georgia.gov case study
As a part of the book, Preston also has a case study from the state of Georgia, which has made its entire FAQ content available through Amazon Alexa.
Through the process, they reinvented existing accessibility and content strategy approaches to best address interactions like:
How do I renew my driver’s license
How do I apply my kid to kindergarten
They also need to address links and call to action and they performed an omnichannel content audit to ensure single-sourcing.
Compromises needed to be made to facilitate cross-channel interactions, but now 8 months later they have an almost 80% success rate on all interactions
Recommendations and looking to the future
Finally, Preston shared his key advice and a glimpse of what’s coming next.
Most notably, he strongly recommended going single source. This is the only sustainable way and also the best use of your resources.
Remember that the structure has to be given to the user for voice and Preston advised to invest in creating effective dialogues - similar to a flow chart for the interactions.
Looking to the future, Preston pointed out the problem today that devices like Alexa or Siri, don’t fully represent the richness of human language. There’s still work to be done when it comes to bilingual conversations and also accents and dialects.
Learn more about voice content
You can browse the slides (PDF) from the call or lean back and enjoy the entire recording below.