3 ms·

If you read the article, much of criticisms about the state of the art at the time (mid-90s) has been addressed, and to great benefit. To take just one example

If you read the article, much of criticisms about the state of the art at the time (mid-90s) has been addressed, and to great benefit. To take just one example, the use of natural language via voice commands to allow the user to discover new commands beyond what can be expressed with a visual UI - but there are many more examples.

angus-prune 6y ago
The discoverability of voice commands is terrible. I have no idea how to find out what I can do with Alexa, or which particular magic phrasing Alexa will understand. My personal biggest issue, as means of illustration, is that I have no idea how to play the latest episode of something on the BBC app, rather than continuing from where I left off. I'm sure there is a way, but none of my "natural language" attempts are recognised, and I can't find any way to find out what the true commands might be. Given that I mostly listen to news shows while doing something else (and hence rarely finish a particular episode) this makes the whole system near useless. I may be missing something basic, or if you have any tips on the discoverability of Alexa commands, I'd be very grateful. But in my experience, the discoverability of voice commands is the worst I've ever come across; at least with CLI you have man pages, and with a GUI, even in the worst case of no documentation and obscure icons, there are buttons to explore through trial and error.
- h0l0cube 6y ago
  It's a problem that will be solved better and better as technology improves. GPT-3 is holding a lot of promise in taking input from one domain (language) and generating an outcome in a different domain (commands). Not sure how bad/good Alexa is, but everyone (myself included) in my household are talking to Google and Siri all the time to do tasks that would have taken multiple clicks on a screen, and a bunch of typing. A huge reduction in friction. The state of the art isn't perfect, but as it improves, it's undoubtedly taking UX in a direction that is popular and desirable to consumers.

angus-prune 6y ago

The discoverability of voice commands is terrible. I have no idea how to find out what I can do with Alexa, or which particular magic phrasing Alexa will understand. My personal biggest issue, as means of illustration, is that I have no idea how to play the latest episode of something on the BBC app, rather than continuing from where I left off. I'm sure there is a way, but none of my "natural language" attempts are recognised, and I can't find any way to find out what the true commands might be. Given that I mostly listen to news shows while doing something else (and hence rarely finish a particular episode) this makes the whole system near useless. I may be missing something basic, or if you have any tips on the discoverability of Alexa commands, I'd be very grateful. But in my experience, the discoverability of voice commands is the worst I've ever come across; at least with CLI you have man pages, and with a GUI, even in the worst case of no documentation and obscure icons, there are buttons to explore through trial and error.

h0l0cube 6y ago
It's a problem that will be solved better and better as technology improves. GPT-3 is holding a lot of promise in taking input from one domain (language) and generating an outcome in a different domain (commands). Not sure how bad/good Alexa is, but everyone (myself included) in my household are talking to Google and Siri all the time to do tasks that would have taken multiple clicks on a screen, and a bunch of typing. A huge reduction in friction. The state of the art isn't perfect, but as it improves, it's undoubtedly taking UX in a direction that is popular and desirable to consumers.