Thousands of applications--from airline reservations to zoo schedules--use phone-based interfaces to provide information to callers and to request input. The dramatic increase in the number of these applications has led to wide variability in the quality of the interface design. Most users accept these systems because they must; experience with poorly designed phone-based interfaces has led to widespread dissatisfaction. The authors suggest that a lack of published guidelines for interface design for these systems contributes to the variability in quality. In this paper, guidelines are proposed for the construction of phone-based interfaces to interactive voice response systems. These guidelines are a compilation of information from the best of current practices, empirical research where available, and industry knowledge. This collection is a starting point for further discussion and standardization that will eventually lead to optimally usable interactive voice response systems.
Abstract