RE: voice menu systems

I think that we have to be very careful about:


a)       Trying to solve problems related to multiple cognitive barriers in a single SC (i.e. memory limitations and reading limitations);

b)      What we wish for - it may not be as good as imagined (i.e. "a simple interaction to reach human help" will only work if we can be sure that the human help will be available and useful when reached).

An alternative web interface will often already be available and will, if designed according to our other guidance, not cause problems for people with impaired memory. I think that we have (or if not we should have) an SC that says that for a normal web service there should be an option to easily reach human help. If this is the case, then the people you describe are likely to avoid the voice menus and go straight to the text-based web interface and, if they cannot manage, they will try to access the human help.

Why I say we should be careful what we wish for is that if there is a sufficiently "simple interaction to reach human help" in a voice menu system it is likely that very many will be tempted to use it. I think many people (certainly me) don't like the feeling of being obstructed and controlled that you get when using voice menus. Those that provide such services know this and therefore rarely highlight the availability of an option to go straight to a human. If everyone knew this existed and could very easily find it they might be tempted to go straight for it.

If everyone tries to go straight for human help you will rapidly get back to the different hell that existed before voice menus became so common. This alternative hell was understaffed and often unhelpful helplines. Trying to provide responsive and helpful helplines was a problem that all companies tried to do and almost all failed. It is too easy to forget this alternative hell:


-          "We are currently experiencing abnormally high calls and there will be a delay in answering your call" (a 24/7 message);

-          Enormous delays at any time;

-          Calls dropping out after waiting for 15 min or much more for the call to be answered;

-          Getting through to the single contact number to be told something like "Ah you need to speak to our technical support" and either:

o   "I'll try to put you through" followed by silence and then either a dropped line or being told that they are all busy and being asked to phone a different (unpublished) number;

o   Just being given another number which you could use to join another infinite queue;

o   Finally getting through to someone who would then probably ask you again all your customer ID information;

-          Etc.

Trying to staff a conventional phone-in system at a level that guaranteed a good customer experience at any time required large numbers of people who could often be seriously under-loaded with calls for a lot of the time. Such high staffing levels are not economic in a commercial environment (especially as in the above examples the same customer could often be spoken to for an extended period by two people with still no guarantee of a successful outcome).

It was above realities that led to the introduction of voice menu systems that could:

-          Allow some customers to get what they wanted without speaking to a human operator (e.g. finding out store opening times);

-          Ensure that suitably knowledgeable operating staff could have a permanent short queue of calls that are relevant for them to deal with (allocating sufficient operators according to  the length of the different queues);

-          Ensure that customers who gave the right responses to the menus always get someone who can deal directly with their query;

-          Etc.

Voice menu systems that work as planned allow service providers to provide responsive service to their customers at feasible costs. As well as benefiting the service providers, customers also benefit from the avoidance of lengthy waits to speak to someone (even though, like me, they may curse at being forced through the "tiresome" menu system).

In conclusion, I do not think that we should remove the alternative conformant option, as only leaving the option of "a simple interaction to reach human help" may result in something that totally undermines a voice menu system and may result in a service reverting to the old massive delays and re-routing nightmare that we have all largely escaped from.

Best regards

Mike


From: lisa.seeman [mailto:lisa.seeman@zoho.com]
Sent: 25 September 2016 19:00
To: public-cognitive-a11y-tf <public-cognitive-a11y-tf@w3.org>
Subject: voice menu systems


Please look at https://rawgit.com/w3c/coga/master/extension/task-completion.html

Our we comfortable with the provision of a conformant alternative user-interaction method, that does not rely on user memorization, may allow this success criterion to be met?

It implies that you can have a text alternative to a complex voice system, and that may leave people who can not read, but can manage simple  speech, excluded?

Should we replace the provision with a provision along the lines of , "providing a simple interaction to reach human help allows this success criterion to be met".

All the best

Lisa Seeman

LinkedIn<http://il.linkedin.com/in/lisaseeman/>, Twitter<https://twitter.com/SeemanLisa>

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