Table of Contents
"Multiple simultaneous wake words provide the best option for customers. Utterance by utterance, customers can choose which voice service will best support a particular interaction. It's exciting to see these companies come together in pursuit of that vision."
– Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO, Amazon
Voice agents are a rapidly growing part of the world of consumer products and services. With multiple voice agents available on a single device, each with their own strengths, experiences, and personalities, customers have more options than ever to engage with them.
The increasing number and variety of voice agents does present a challenge to product and agent designers, though. How can we offer customers a set of voice agents whose fundamental interactions and behaviors that allow great customer experiences? Can we simplify requirements and identify design consistencies to reduce development effort?
Privacy
When customers interact with multiple agents on a device, it is important to offer them transparency in their experiences. Product makers should ensure that customers know which agent they are interacting with. If a multi-agent experience requires the sharing of any data between agents, it should be made clear to customers that such sharing is taking place, and they should be allowed to give consent.
Predictability
Interacting with multiple agents across different devices may seem more complex to customers. We should strive to avoid confusion, extra cognitive load, and conflicting behaviors. We want to offer customers delightful surprises, not frustrating ones. To help them navigate the complexities, products and voice agents should interact in expected and familiar ways.
Ease of use
Customers should be able to interact intuitively with their agents without having to remember complex rules or confusing guidance. Interactions and commands should feel natural, and customers should have easy access to device controls.
The VII Design Guide focuses on behavior and interaction design challenges that occur when multiple simultaneous agents exist on a single device. Building on the ideas and experiences of VII members, this Design Guide is intended to:
- Present a common framework and terminology to help facilitate ongoing discussions about multiple simultaneous agent experiences. A Glossary is included at the end of this document.
- Capture device and voice agent design guidance, principles, and best practices needed for multiple voice agents to coexist on a device.
- Empower engineers, designers, and product developers to find innovative ways to achieve even greater benefits for customers.
- Represent a step toward sharing knowledge to improve customer experiences and reduce development effort and cost.
- The minimum set of design recommendations for agents to co-exist simultaneously on a device are gathered in Baseline Guidance for each section. In addition, the other recommendations and best practices presented are intended to improve the customer experience.
