5 ms·

I can't help but agree fully. Its worse on telephones where they might be doing NLP, but they cannot understand and parse accents and dialects. I remember my la

I can't help but agree fully. Its worse on telephones where they might be doing NLP, but they cannot understand and parse accents and dialects. I remember my late grandmother trying to call AT&T a couple of years ago (just before COVID), and the robot would ask: "What can I help you with?" and then could not understand how she pronounced "pay my bill" because she said "PAY mah BEEEEEL". But just hitting 0 did nothing, so after 5 minutes of her repeating "PAY mah BEEEEL" over and over, I took the phone from her and did it. From then on she would have to have other people pay her bill over the phone. Doing this to a much more complex user interface and providing me no clue what I'm supposed to ask for something I have no way of knowing that I don't know it is a dystopian future I'm glad my grandmother won't have to endure.

hacker_9 4y ago
It's poor thinking on them to only provide a talking interface. I don't think I've encountered that personally, there is always a way to use the keypad - which I will always use anyway, even though they understand my voice, it's just x10 faster. And if you've made the call before you can type on the keypad before the robot on the other side is done talking.
- tiagod 4y ago
  There's plenty of services in Portugal that only have the damned robots. They're also adding the most infuriating chatbots that they pretty much force you to go through before getting to a human. Can't wait for the day this is all banned.
  - Dudeman112 4y ago
    Whenever this is discussed, it always makes me wonder... Why? Just why? SURELY just adding an option to use the damn textual "pick 1 for Blah, 2 for bleh..." would take no effort at all?
    - monkpit 4y ago
      You also have to consider - does the company you are calling BENEFIT from you hanging up in anger/frustration? Many times the answer is yes.
      - Dudeman112 4y ago
        Most of the time the answer long term is "no" because as long as it's not a monopoly people will go to their competitors that aren't utter shite at what they do
        monkpit 4y ago
        I think the number of people who would actually do this is smaller than you think.
        allgreed 4y ago
        But there are cases where the interacting with company which engages in said practices is due to a transitive relationship. Example: My preferred clothing vendor uses a certain of delivery company. If I, personally, am sending a package then switching the delivery company is usually trivial. Switching clothing vendor because UPS has crappy international package management and you need to say the package id instead of typing it would hurt me more than it would hurt them. And the other shipping companies aren’t much better anyway. And afaik there isn’t much incentive for trading off something in exchange for pissing parcels receivers less, because see above. On the other hand, there are great shipping companies, end user experiance-wise. One I can think of is a polish automated pickup station company. Somehow the experience (including customer support in case of a stuck door, etc.) only gets better with time so far. But they were the first and afaik remain the only company in the automated pickup station space that counts in Poland.
        pintxo 4y ago
        Depends, if your only option to cancel is via phone or chat-bot.
        4y ago
- passwordoops 4y ago
  I don't have data but more and more seem to be turning voice only. Some US-based airlines come to mind, and one of the banks I deal with. It's fun when they ask for my "16 to 20 digit client number"
  - Pxtl 4y ago
    And then they spend half a minute slowly reading back each digit to ask "is this correct?"
    - wrycoder 4y ago
      Mine just started introducing an ad before they get to the main menu. Also, they repeat things several times during the interaction. i.e. the phone number I just called. “Do you want to repeat that or go to the main menu?” “Main menu.” “You want to go to the main menu, is that right?” It’s not my pronunciation, it does that every time. Bot time is considered cheap, and therefore so is the user’s time. The time for the transaction has doubled over the last five years, as they add more repeats, information, and now, ads.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
passwordoops 4y ago
As a 40-something white male with a neutral, Urban Canadian English accent (so the ideal NLP user), even I have difficulty with voice assistants and ABHOR being forced to use one. My wife does have an accent and like your late grandmother always has great difficulty with these, usually requiring my intervention. Unfortunately, NLP is "modern" and "eliminates drag" according to current design-think. What's needed is a shift from thinking about "User Experience" to the real lived human experience when designing interfaces
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- chinchilla2020 4y ago
  That's the issue. The academic and research UI/UX spaces tend to reject user feedback. The explanation is that "You must train the users to like it". Deeply unpopular changes that are gaining traction in industry but hated by users are: 1. removal of all buttons from devices in favor of screens 2. voice bots and text bots 3. gesture interfaces
  - passwordoops 4y ago
    These are the same brain geniuses who parrot the old "Henry Ford said if asked, my customers would demand faster horses" Really? Aside from the fact the quote cannot be attributed to him, was this before or after he was forced out as CEO when bringing Ford to the brink of bankruptcy for, among other things, declining sales caused by not listening to clients? In the middle of the roaring 20s - you know that period of time when everyone was buying things like new cars? And companies like Chrysler boomed by provided features that clients wanted? Because they asked and listened. That Henry Ford?
    - jjeaff 4y ago
      I have found that statement to be very true. But not in the sense that you shouldn't listen to customers. Just that you can't necessarily rely on customers to figure out the next big thing. Once you put that thing in front of them though, you have to incrementally improve based on customer feedback.
hinkley 4y ago
Regional accents are terrible that way. Are you sure it was "BEEEEL"? There are places where "bill" is two syllables. I'm surprised you didn't get "PAY mah BEE ILL"
imbnwa 4y ago
My grandfather speaks in a thick, archaic Northern Georgia brogue I can't imagine anything parsing his speech correctly since to the untrained ear it sounds like one long continuously occilating grumble sorta like Boomhauer from King of the Hill but deeper and with more bass. You can generally hear him pronounce "shit" pretty clearly though.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
Thoreandan 4y ago
English was my mother's 5th language, I can relate to acting as interpreter for family. I'm reminded of the "Voice Recognition Lift" sketch from the Scottish comedy Burnistoun - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqAu-DDlINs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqAu-DDlINs
LouisSayers 4y ago
When I moved to London I went to the supermarket and asked in my New Zealand accent where the eggs are. "The what?" The assistant replied, "the eegs" I replied. "I don't think we sell those" he said. I switched to an American accent and he was finally able to understand.
GrinningFool 4y ago
For future reference, when these systems offer you a choice of things to say like "Pay my bill", "Check my balance", etc, they are usually backed by numeric input too. You can press the number corresponding to the voice option provided - in this example 1) pay bill, 2) check balance.
mLuby 4y ago
Is there a website or CLI that turns the phone tree back into a proper text interface?

hacker_9 4y ago

It's poor thinking on them to only provide a talking interface. I don't think I've encountered that personally, there is always a way to use the keypad - which I will always use anyway, even though they understand my voice, it's just x10 faster. And if you've made the call before you can type on the keypad before the robot on the other side is done talking.

tiagod 4y ago
There's plenty of services in Portugal that only have the damned robots. They're also adding the most infuriating chatbots that they pretty much force you to go through before getting to a human. Can't wait for the day this is all banned.
- Dudeman112 4y ago
  Whenever this is discussed, it always makes me wonder... Why? Just why? SURELY just adding an option to use the damn textual "pick 1 for Blah, 2 for bleh..." would take no effort at all?
  - monkpit 4y ago
    You also have to consider - does the company you are calling BENEFIT from you hanging up in anger/frustration? Many times the answer is yes.
    - Dudeman112 4y ago
      Most of the time the answer long term is "no" because as long as it's not a monopoly people will go to their competitors that aren't utter shite at what they do
      - monkpit 4y ago
        I think the number of people who would actually do this is smaller than you think.
      - allgreed 4y ago
        But there are cases where the interacting with company which engages in said practices is due to a transitive relationship. Example: My preferred clothing vendor uses a certain of delivery company. If I, personally, am sending a package then switching the delivery company is usually trivial. Switching clothing vendor because UPS has crappy international package management and you need to say the package id instead of typing it would hurt me more than it would hurt them. And the other shipping companies aren’t much better anyway. And afaik there isn’t much incentive for trading off something in exchange for pissing parcels receivers less, because see above. On the other hand, there are great shipping companies, end user experiance-wise. One I can think of is a polish automated pickup station company. Somehow the experience (including customer support in case of a stuck door, etc.) only gets better with time so far. But they were the first and afaik remain the only company in the automated pickup station space that counts in Poland.
      - pintxo 4y ago
        Depends, if your only option to cancel is via phone or chat-bot.
        4y ago
passwordoops 4y ago
I don't have data but more and more seem to be turning voice only. Some US-based airlines come to mind, and one of the banks I deal with. It's fun when they ask for my "16 to 20 digit client number"
- Pxtl 4y ago
  And then they spend half a minute slowly reading back each digit to ask "is this correct?"
  - wrycoder 4y ago
    Mine just started introducing an ad before they get to the main menu. Also, they repeat things several times during the interaction. i.e. the phone number I just called. “Do you want to repeat that or go to the main menu?” “Main menu.” “You want to go to the main menu, is that right?” It’s not my pronunciation, it does that every time. Bot time is considered cheap, and therefore so is the user’s time. The time for the transaction has doubled over the last five years, as they add more repeats, information, and now, ads.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

passwordoops 4y ago

As a 40-something white male with a neutral, Urban Canadian English accent (so the ideal NLP user), even I have difficulty with voice assistants and ABHOR being forced to use one. My wife does have an accent and like your late grandmother always has great difficulty with these, usually requiring my intervention. Unfortunately, NLP is "modern" and "eliminates drag" according to current design-think. What's needed is a shift from thinking about "User Experience" to the real lived human experience when designing interfaces

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
chinchilla2020 4y ago
That's the issue. The academic and research UI/UX spaces tend to reject user feedback. The explanation is that "You must train the users to like it". Deeply unpopular changes that are gaining traction in industry but hated by users are: 1. removal of all buttons from devices in favor of screens 2. voice bots and text bots 3. gesture interfaces
- passwordoops 4y ago
  These are the same brain geniuses who parrot the old "Henry Ford said if asked, my customers would demand faster horses" Really? Aside from the fact the quote cannot be attributed to him, was this before or after he was forced out as CEO when bringing Ford to the brink of bankruptcy for, among other things, declining sales caused by not listening to clients? In the middle of the roaring 20s - you know that period of time when everyone was buying things like new cars? And companies like Chrysler boomed by provided features that clients wanted? Because they asked and listened. That Henry Ford?
  - jjeaff 4y ago
    I have found that statement to be very true. But not in the sense that you shouldn't listen to customers. Just that you can't necessarily rely on customers to figure out the next big thing. Once you put that thing in front of them though, you have to incrementally improve based on customer feedback.

hinkley 4y ago

Regional accents are terrible that way. Are you sure it was "BEEEEL"? There are places where "bill" is two syllables. I'm surprised you didn't get "PAY mah BEE ILL"

imbnwa 4y ago

My grandfather speaks in a thick, archaic Northern Georgia brogue I can't imagine anything parsing his speech correctly since to the untrained ear it sounds like one long continuously occilating grumble sorta like Boomhauer from King of the Hill but deeper and with more bass. You can generally hear him pronounce "shit" pretty clearly though.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

Thoreandan 4y ago

English was my mother's 5th language, I can relate to acting as interpreter for family. I'm reminded of the "Voice Recognition Lift" sketch from the Scottish comedy Burnistoun - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqAu-DDlINs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqAu-DDlINs

LouisSayers 4y ago

When I moved to London I went to the supermarket and asked in my New Zealand accent where the eggs are. "The what?" The assistant replied, "the eegs" I replied. "I don't think we sell those" he said. I switched to an American accent and he was finally able to understand.

GrinningFool 4y ago

For future reference, when these systems offer you a choice of things to say like "Pay my bill", "Check my balance", etc, they are usually backed by numeric input too. You can press the number corresponding to the voice option provided - in this example 1) pay bill, 2) check balance.

mLuby 4y ago

Is there a website or CLI that turns the phone tree back into a proper text interface?