Bilingual by default: Voice Assistants and the role of code-switching in creating a bilingual user experience

TL;DR

This paper advocates for voice assistants to support bilingual interactions by incorporating code-switching, aiming to enhance inclusivity and user experience for bilingual users.

Contribution

It highlights the challenges of monolingual design in voice assistants and proposes integrating bilingual phenomena like code-switching to improve inclusivity.

Findings

Bilingual users often switch languages during interaction.

Supporting code-switching can improve user satisfaction.

Multilingual recognition enhances voice assistant inclusivity.

Abstract

Conversational User Interfaces such as Voice Assistants are hugely popular. Yet they are designed to be monolingual by default, lacking support for, or sensitivity to, the bilingual dialogue experience. In this provocation paper, we highlight the language production challenges faced in VA interaction for bilingual users. We argue that, by facilitating phenomena seen in bilingual interaction, such as code-switching, we can foster a more inclusive and improved user experience for bilingual users. We also explore ways that this might be achieved, through the support of multiple language recognition as well as being sensitive to the preferences of code-switching in speech output.