SCREEN, PHONE, AND VOICE USER INTERFACES
Richard Halstead-Nussloch, Mary Jacobson, Chan Chuongvan · ACM SIGCHI Bulletin · 1991
Office principles often have multiple ways to complete typical tasks. For example, scheduling can be done on a paper calendar, electronically, by phone store-and-forward, etc. Each of the ways has unique user-interface characteristics and limitations, as well as a set of economic costs and benefits. We recently completed a study where 18 users compared traditional screen-based, phone-based, and voice-activated interfaces to calendar facilities. The voice-activated and phone-based user interfaces showed the highest level of usability among the comparison set, showing significantly smaller times to complete tasks and assistance requirements than screen-based facilities. With respect to preference 75% percent of the users prefered using a voice-activated or phone-based system for the typical calendaring task of signing out of the office, while only 5% stated a preference for a screen-based system.