8 January 2009:
JotChat Test Results Reveal Users' Comfort with Natural
Language Interaction
(From the SBIR Conversational Interface Report'
Summary)
The testing yielded two important results about how
people interact conversationally with computers.
1. Our users treated JotChat as a
conversational partner
We hypothesized that because input was via keyboard
and the prototype was still early stage, users would be
able to comply with the test, but not necessarily with
great enthusiasm. We were pleased to discover that, even
given these limitations, users responded
enthusiastically to interacting with a computer using
English. Their experiences indicated the test was
enjoyable and not stressful, the learning curve was
rapid without requiring detailed instructions or
references to a manual. Users learned how to best
interact without being explicitly aware of their
adjustment, much as we do when we meet new people. We
are unaware of any other natural language application
that has achieved this ease of interaction.
2. Sighted users were as enthusiastic
as visually impaired users
We expected visually impaired users to be most
enthusiastic since they represent an underserved
population and would find conversational interface
uniquely suited to them. By contrast, we expected
sighted users to be more attached to the graphical user
interfaces of conventional personal information
managers. Instead we found that sighted and visually
impaired users responded with similar enthusiasm to
interacting with a computer using English. This, along
with how readily our users imagined other uses of
JotChat after experiencing this limited feature set,
validates our long-term perspective that Tridbit
technology will have a wide range of applications for
improving human interaction with computers and devices.
Download
the complete Conversational Interface Report.
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