IVR Lessons Learned from Scotsmen in a Voice Rec Elevator

By Kirsi O'Connor, Marketing Manager, Pronexus

This video of two Scotsmen stuck in a voice-activated elevator is hilarious. It is for a good reason that there are many jokes and commercials on speech recognition (as well as on interactive voice response) technologies. There are many bad speech recognition and IVR systems out there. So what can this video teach us about designing better IVR applications?

1. Use Technology That Is Appropriate for Your Application

Provided that push buttons are widely used and accepted, speech recognition may not be the best choice for this kind of application. What if a foreigner enters the elevator? What if a person who for some reason or another in unable to speak enters the elevator? For IVR applications, consider what the users need to do and what the best technology to accomplish this is. If the use of automated speech recognition (ASR) or text-to-speech (TTS) is applicable, you might consider allowing both touchtone and speech input. Irregardless of the technology, it is a good practice to design a way for the user to speak to an operator.

2. Consider the Users

In the video, the taller chap enters the elevator and wonders where the buttons are because the voice recognition system hasn’t provided any instructions. Later on the Scotsmen’s tempers flare when the elevator keeps on repeating the same phrases over and over again. To build a good IVR solution, you need to provide short and concise instructions and plan for error situations. For example, in an insurance application, what happens after the user has keyed in an incorrect policy number two times in a row?

3. Test and Tune Your Application

Had the imaginary designer of the voice activated elevator tested his voice recognition technology with different people in advance, he would probably have discovered that there were situations that he hadn’t properly planned for. Application testing is equally important for IVR applications but it is also good to remember that an IVR developer’s work doesn’t end when the system goes into production. Proper analysis (of e.g. how many callers hang up and in what situations) and tuning ensure an optimized user experience.

Our white paper provides some good insights into things to consider in Voice User Interface (VUI) design.