Qualitative Approaches to Voice UX

TL;DR

This paper systematically reviews qualitative research methods in voice user experience, highlighting their benefits, challenges, and patterns across diverse devices, to enhance understanding of complex voice interactions.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive systematic map and synthesis of qualitative approaches in voice UX, identifying opportunities to improve methodological rigour and understanding.

Findings

Qualitative methods reveal rich insights into voice UX interactions.

There are opportunities to increase rigour in qualitative voice UX research.

Patterns of experience vary across different devices and modes.

Abstract

Voice is a natural mode of expression offered by modern computer-based systems. Qualitative perspectives on voice-based user experiences (voice UX) offer rich descriptions of complex interactions that numbers alone cannot fully represent. We conducted a systematic review of the literature on qualitative approaches to voice UX, capturing the nature of this body of work in a systematic map and offering a qualitative synthesis of findings. We highlight the benefits of qualitative methods for voice UX research, identify opportunities for increasing rigour in methods and outcomes, and distill patterns of experience across a diversity of devices and modes of qualitative praxis.