How do children reformulate questions?

Research insights and design recommendations for speech interaction.

Photo by Colin Maynard on Unsplash

The most annoying experience with voice user interfaces is when they don’t understand what you are saying. What’s worse is when they don’t give you any clue on what went wrong.

Whenever there’s a failed exchange of information, virtual assistants would often say, “Sorry, I don’t know.” The burden of repairing communication is passed on to the user, as affirmed in a recent ethnographic study. In the said study, researchers documented how adults apply several strategies to make successful interactions with their smart speakers.

If adults are having difficulties, what more can we expect with children?

Motivation for designing speech interaction for children

If you think that speech interaction is still emerging, then consider this: 81 out of the 87 participants (aged 5 to 12 years old) in a study in Minnesota, USA have used speech interaction before. The children either have their own smartphone or borrow their parents’. Others have Google Home or Amazon Echo installed in their homes.

Virtual assistants and smart speakers have become commonplace; one user group we shouldn’t forget are children. Speech…