Measuring the End-user Experience with Voice-assistants: From Usability to Acceptance.

The popularity of the voice-assistants (VA) has been on the rise recently. These smart-devices are unique as they have anthropomorphic features built into them due to the advancements made in artificial intelligence, natural language processing and machine learning technologies. Although they have potential for helping the users in various daily activities, tasks along with providing companionship, yet, not much is known about their usability aspect. A good usability is one of the fundamental requirements for ensuring a good user experience. The problem is there are certain fundamental differences between designing a graphical user interface (GUI) and a voice-based system having no display. Current design principles are heavily based on GUI systems including the methods to assess the usability, due to which there is a need to focus on this new context and advance the usability research for a voice-based paradigm. In this project we plan to do an end-to-end analysis of the current state of art of the VAs right from their usability aspect to the final end-user acceptance and adoption. Particularly, we aim to propose concrete subjective as well as objective measures for evaluating the usability of the VAs, along with examining the relevant factors (other than usability) that can affect the diffusion and acceptance of these products.