4 ms·

The problem is not the limitations of the capabilities per se but their discoverability (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discoverability https://en.wikipedia.org/

by esafak 1y ago

The problem is not the limitations of the capabilities per se but their discoverability (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discoverability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discoverability). The user doesn't know what the capabilities are, as they are added and -- infuriatingly -- removed. Google Assistant is a perfect example of this. Conservational user interfaces are opaque; they lack affordances. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordance

rushingcreek 1y ago
Yep, this is a big problem as well. If the user doesn't know what features will or won't work, they lose confidence overall.
beefnugs 1y ago
Thank you for this word. I have felt it my whole life and never learned the exact word. I immediately knew the last generation of voice assistants was dead garbage when there was no way to know what it could do, they just expected you to try 100 things, until it worked randomly
stavros 1y ago
They don't lack affordances, you can do stuff. They lack signifiers, ie it's not easy to discover the stuff you can do.
- esafak 1y ago
  Affordance is not what it can do, it is what it signals that it can do. It needs to be perceptible, by the definition I use (Norman's). I see others go by different definitions that even admit hidden affordances. I do not.
  - stavros 1y ago
    From The Design of Everyday Things: > Affordances represent the possibilities in the world for how an agent (a person, animal, or machine) can interact with something. Some affordances are perceivable, others are invisible. Signifiers are signals. Some signifiers are signs, labels, and drawings placed in the world, such as the signs labeled “push,” “pull,” or “exit” on doors, or arrows and diagrams indicating what is to be acted upon or in which direction to gesture, or other instructions. Some signifiers are simply the perceived affordances, such as the handle of a door or the physical structure of a switch. Note that some perceived affordances may not be real: they may look like doors or places to push, or an impediment to entry, when in fact they are not. With Norman's definition, if a conversational interface can perform an action, it affords that action. The fact that you don't know that it affords that action means there's a lack of a signifier. As you say, this is a matter of definition, I'm just commenting on Norman's specific definition from the book.
gwd 1y ago
Voice interfaces actually remind me a lot of command-line interfaces: If you know the a working "rune" on the tip of your tongue (e.g., "Set a timer for 10 mintues", "Play <exact title rune that gets the song you want>") it's great. But as you say, it's not always that easy to figure out new "runes". LLMs should be somewhat better for that, though.
- rushingcreek 1y ago
  The LLM is phenomenal at figuring out what you want, but it still has to map it to the schema of the tool. So while the job of figuring out the working “rune” is offloaded from you to the LLM, it doesn’t solve the fundamental problem of the available “runes” likely being brittle and insufficient for any given task even when the LLM knows exactly what you want to do.

by esafak 1y ago

rushingcreek 1y ago

Yep, this is a big problem as well. If the user doesn't know what features will or won't work, they lose confidence overall.

beefnugs 1y ago

Thank you for this word. I have felt it my whole life and never learned the exact word. I immediately knew the last generation of voice assistants was dead garbage when there was no way to know what it could do, they just expected you to try 100 things, until it worked randomly

stavros 1y ago

They don't lack affordances, you can do stuff. They lack signifiers, ie it's not easy to discover the stuff you can do.

esafak 1y ago
Affordance is not what it can do, it is what it signals that it can do. It needs to be perceptible, by the definition I use (Norman's). I see others go by different definitions that even admit hidden affordances. I do not.
- stavros 1y ago
  From The Design of Everyday Things: > Affordances represent the possibilities in the world for how an agent (a person, animal, or machine) can interact with something. Some affordances are perceivable, others are invisible. Signifiers are signals. Some signifiers are signs, labels, and drawings placed in the world, such as the signs labeled “push,” “pull,” or “exit” on doors, or arrows and diagrams indicating what is to be acted upon or in which direction to gesture, or other instructions. Some signifiers are simply the perceived affordances, such as the handle of a door or the physical structure of a switch. Note that some perceived affordances may not be real: they may look like doors or places to push, or an impediment to entry, when in fact they are not. With Norman's definition, if a conversational interface can perform an action, it affords that action. The fact that you don't know that it affords that action means there's a lack of a signifier. As you say, this is a matter of definition, I'm just commenting on Norman's specific definition from the book.

gwd 1y ago

Voice interfaces actually remind me a lot of command-line interfaces: If you know the a working "rune" on the tip of your tongue (e.g., "Set a timer for 10 mintues", "Play <exact title rune that gets the song you want>") it's great. But as you say, it's not always that easy to figure out new "runes". LLMs should be somewhat better for that, though.

rushingcreek 1y ago
The LLM is phenomenal at figuring out what you want, but it still has to map it to the schema of the tool. So while the job of figuring out the working “rune” is offloaded from you to the LLM, it doesn’t solve the fundamental problem of the available “runes” likely being brittle and insufficient for any given task even when the LLM knows exactly what you want to do.