Table Of ContentThe Elements of
Voice First Style
A Practical Guide to Voice User
Interface Design
Ahmed Bouzid
& Weiye Ma
Praise for The Elements of Voice First Style
Rare is a book that can teach beginners and experts
so deeply and practically. These lessons will grow
alongside voice technology for years to come.
—Julia Anderson, conversation designer & writer
You knew the What, now here’s the detailed step-by-step
“How to do Conversation Design.” A first!
—Maria Aretoulaki, principal consultant CX
design (voice & conversational AI) at GlobalLogic
and director at DialogCONNECTION
The Elements of Voice First Style establishes the foundations
for a new wave of applications designed to truly delight users.
Fortunately, technology has finally enabled the nuance and
sophistication that Bouzid and Ma so artfully postulate.
—Corey Miller, ASR research manager at Rev.com
As a long-time specialist in conversational technologies, I’ve
often asked how the principles espoused in The Elements of Style,
the venerated writers’ guide by William Strunk, Jr., and E.B.
White, could be adopted by designers of voicebots and “Voice
First” applications. This practical guide by Bouzid and Ma is
the answer to that question. It is an homage to Strunk and
White that provides a very accessible, yet comprehensive set of
guidelines for aspiring designers for intelligent voice assistants.
—Dan Miller, founder of Opus Research
The Elements of Voice First Style: A Practical Guide to Voice User
Interface Design is informative, brilliant, and a must read for
those in the industry to those wanting to learn from the best!
—Audrey Arbeeny, CEO/founder/executive producer
at Audiobrain
The book offers precious voicebot design best practices!
—Giorgio Robino, conversational AI technical leader
at Almawave.it
If you are building voice-based apps, this book is a must read.
It shares the essential fundamentals for beginners and practical
guidance for experts who are interested in gaining a deeper
understanding of building high quality voicebots.
—Rajiv Bammi, senior engineering leader
Voice first technology needs honest perspectives to show the way
forward. Ahmed and Weiye’s book provides exactly that; new
ways to think about old problems, how to make improvements,
when voice isn’t a good solution, and what’s wrong with the
status quo. Burst the hype bubble—read this book!
—Benjamin McCulloch, conversation designer
(with audio super powers)
The Elements of
Voice First Style
A Practical Guide
to Voice User
Interface Design
Ahmed Bouzid and Weiye Ma
The Elements of Voice First Style
by Ahmed Bouzid and Weiye Ma
Copyright © 2022 Ahmed Bouzid and Weiye Ma. All rights reserved.
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The views expressed in this work are those of the authors and do not repre‐
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If any code samples or other technology this work contains or describes is
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978-1-098-11959-1
[LSI]
To our parents.
Table of Contents
Preface xvii
Introduction xxix
Chapter 1: Why Voice First 1
Eyes-Free 1
Hands-Free 2
Ephemerality 2
Wealth 2
Passivity 3
Minimal Effort 3
Broadcasting 4
Nonliteracy 4
Chapter 2: When Voice First 5
Environment 5
Content 6
User State 7
vii
Channels 8
Some Scenarios 8
Chapter 3: Why Voice First Automation 11
Reduce Costs 11
Handle Spikes 12
Increase Customer Satisfaction 12
Increase Agent Satisfaction 13
Increase Revenue 14
Enable Personalization 14
Facilitate Task Completion 15
Secure Privacy 15
Increase Security 16
Chapter 4: The Three Core Characteristics of the VUI 17
Time Linearity 18
Unidirectionality 19
Invisibility 20
Chapter 5: The Elements of Conversation 23
The Ontology of Conversations 25
The Conversational Actions 27
The Conversational States 31
The Internal Conversational Context 31
Conversational Signaling 32
Chapter 6: The Rules of Conversation 37
The Cooperative Principle 40
The Maxim of Quality 42
The Maxim of Quantity 42
viii | Table of Contents
