The next New York workshop of the Association for Voice Interaction Design (AVIxD) will be held on 7 August 2011. The workshop has been scheduled to allow participants to also attend SpeechTEK 2011, which will immediately follow this AVIxD workshop.

The workshop will focus on mobile and multi-modal voice interaction design.  The format of the workshop will follow past workshops; a formal call for papers will be offered soon.  This workshop will be organized by David Attwater (EIG), and Jason Williams (AT&T Labs – Research)

This New York workshop is one of 3 AVIxD workshops offered in 2011. Here is a list of all 2011 AVIxD workshops:

• 2011 West Coast/Bay Area AVIxD Workshop on on 23 January 2011, just prior to Mobile Voice Conference.  Workshop topic: “Talking Turkey: Where Does Speech Make Sense?”
• 2011 Europe/London AVIxD Workshop on 24 May 2011, just prior to SpeechTEK Europe.  Workshop topic: “Cross lingual & Cross cultural Voice Interaction Design”
• 2011 East Coast/New York City AVIxD Workshop on 7 August 2011, just prior to SpeechTEK.  Workshop will cover mobile and multi-modal voice interaction design.

For details, or to join the Association for Voice Interaction Design, see www.avixd.org

Talking Turkey: Where Does Speech Make Sense?

Sunday, 23 January 2011 | Just prior to AVIOS Mobile Voice Conference 2011 | 1 – 7 PM

San Jose, California

Join us for the 2011 workshop on voice interaction design, Talking Turkey: Where Does Speech Make Sense? The AVIxD workshop is a hands-on session in which voice user interface practitioners come together to debate a topic of interest to the VUI community. The workshop is an opportunity to meet with your peers and delve deeply into a single topic. As in 2010, we will be publishing our papers on www.avixd.org. Please visit our website for more details on the purpose of the organization and how you can be part of it.

To be considered for the workshop, individuals must submit a position paper of approximately 500 words on this workshop’s topic:

During a recent AVIxD workshop, one of our esteemed colleagues asked a fundamental question of the group: Where does speech make sense?  The question is not simple to answer.  We have seen touchtone prove itself preferable to speech in certain IVR contexts, and we have seen people happily dictate documents but then grow frustrated when editing the same documents by voice.  Speech in the car seems to make perfect sense, but how should it be implemented in that environment so that it does not present safety risks?

The time of “irrational exuberance” regarding speech technology has died down, with fewer voices still suggesting speech be employed everywhere, replacing all other UI modes (keyboards, mice, buttons, etc.).  With our often painfully learned lessons, we designers are now better able to take a critical look and ask: How do we really take hold of the speech modality and use it where it makes the most sense? How do we look beyond blanket replacements and apply speech strategically and tactically within a variety of user experiences?

These questions lead us to obvious follow-ups.  For example:

• Where has speech been successful/unsuccessful so far? In what cases were those expected/unexpected?
• What areas of human-computer interaction might be intriguing new frontiers for speech?
• If one is going to promote speech at one conversational turn within a system or device (i.e., “where it makes sense”) but not the next, will that switch in modality be experienced as inconsistent and might it trip up the user? Or will the user respond intuitively, almost as if they already knew when to try each modality? What makes the difference?
• As designers, do we have a responsibility to identify optimal applications of speech interaction, avoiding the temptation to sell speech “everywhere?” Or do we employ speech “everywhere” and let users tell us where it’s working for them?

As usual, specific examples of applications you’ve worked on are always most valuable to the UX community.

The cost of participation is free to AVIxD members; non-members will be charged $40, however the fee may be applied towards AVIxD membership at the workshop. Please submit your papers via email no later than Tuesday, December 10, 2010 to cfp@avixd.org. Letters of acceptance will be sent by Tuesday, January 4, 2011.

We look forward to seeing you in San Jose!  Contact either of the co-chairs with questions: Jonathan Bloom (jonathanb@speechcycle.com) or Phillip Hunter (phunter@microsoft.com).

Call for Position Papers | First European AVIxD Workshop

Cross-linguistic & Cross-cultural Voice Interaction Design

Tuesday, 24 May 2011 | Just prior to SpeechTEK Europe 2011 | 1 – 7 PM

London, England

The Association for Voice Interaction Design (AVIxD) invites you to join us for our first voice interaction design workshop held in Europe, Cross-linguistic & Cross-cultural Voice Interaction Design. The AVIxD workshop is a hands-on day-long session in which voice user interface practitioners come together to debate a topic of interest to the speech community.  The workshop is a unique opportunity for them to meet with their peers and delve deeply into a single topic.

As in previous years with the AVIxD Workshops held in the US, we will write papers based on our discussions which we will then publish on www.avixd.org.  Please visit our website to see papers from previous workshops, and for more details on the purpose of the organization and how you can be part of it.

In order to participate in the workshop, individuals must submit a position paper of approximately 500 words in English.  Possible topics to touch upon in your submission (to be discussed in depth during the workshop) include:

• Language choice and user demographics
• Presentation of the language options to the caller and caller preference
• Creation and (co-)maintenance of dialogue designs, grammars, prompts across languages
• Political and sociolinguistic issues in system prompt choices and recognition grammars, such as code-switching, formal versus informal registers
• Guidelines for application localization, translation, and interpretation
• Setting expectations regarding  availability of multilingual agents, Language- and culture-sensitive persona definition
• Coordinating usability testing and tuning across diverse linguistic / cultural groups
• Language choice and modality preference

We always encourage the use of specific examples from applications you’ve worked on in your position paper.

Participation is free to AVIxD members; non-members will be charged £25, which may be applied towards AVIxD membership at the workshop. Please submit your position papers via email no later than 16 February 2011 to cfp@avixd.org. Letters of acceptance will be sent out on 30 March 2011.

We look forward to engaging with the European speech design community to discuss the particular challenges of designing speech solutions for users from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds.  Feel free to contact either of the co-chairs below, if you have any questions.

Caroline Leathem (caroline@eiginc.com)

Maria Aretoulaki (maria@dialogconnection.com)

As most of you know, AVIxD held its first official Board of Director Elections which is an exciting and significant step for our small organization. This signifies we’ve officially moved on from “a bunch of Susan’s colleagues who are trying to get something rolling” to a real organization. I am so proud of how smoothly the election process went and how many members took the time to vote, and of course, I’m pleased to welcome out new Board Members: David Attwater, Bill Byrne, and Jason Williams.

But this also means that it’s time to say goodbye to some of the original Board Members, the intrepid few who were willing to jump into uncharted waters with me and create AVIxD from nothing. We wouldn’t be where we are today without the time, energy, and devotion of these four people, so I’d like to thank them each.

Thanks to Lizanne Kaiser for serving as founding vice-president, and for being willing to share her consistently valuable insights from her experience with other non-profit organizations. Lizanne brought many great ideas into the organization and we owe the smooth running of the recent elections to her.

Thank you to Peter Krogh for serving as a founding board member and as the co-chair of the AVIxD Workshop in 2009 and 2010. We could always count on Peter for a unique perspective and I will miss having him as resident provocateur.

Thanks to Jenni McKienzie for her service as founding treasurer and 2009 AVIxD Workshop co-chair, and for always being willing to pitch in, no matter what the project. My personal thanks to Jenni for nudging me into action to take AVIxD from a nice idea to a real organization.

Finally, thanks to Melanie Polkosky for serving as the founding secretary and keeping the records that reminded us who promised to do what, what we decided, and why. We’re also grateful to Melanie for conducting and sharing the results of the career survey with the AVIxD community.

Thanks to each of you, and to the rest of the founding board members (Charles Galles, Phillip Hunter, and Eduardo Olvera), for being willing to jump in and work in the background at a time when our ultimate outcome was uncertain. AVIxD wouldn’t be here without your help and support and I am grateful to each of your for the contributions you made to our organization and our profession.

A round of applause from the crowd, please!

Susan Hura, AVIxD President

Thanks to all who ran and voted. After a tight race, the newly elected board members are David Attwater, Bill Byrne, and Jason Williams. Congratulations!