UX Emerging Trends 2021: Voice User Interface (VUI)

One of the emerging trends of 2021 is voice user interface, which allows the user to interact with a system through voice or speech commands. Examples of this are Siri, Alexa, and Google Assitant. The VUI allows for a hands-free, eyes-free product interaction, allowing users to focus their attention elsewhere.

While Voice User Interface is not a visual design, a design does not have to be visual to work well and still fall under the umbrella of what is considered UX design. The voice interface is an internal interface, and has more to do with context and data synthesis than with actual design. Even so, designers are insistent on keeping up with the latest user experience trends by providing users with a voice interface.

In order for a VUI to be successfully performed in a design, the ability to understand spoken language is necessary as well as the need to train users to understand what type of voice commands they can use and what type of interactions they can perform. The specific way a user interacts with a VUI requires the designer to pay close attention and to ensure the user understands that a two-way “human” conversation is impossible. Likewise, the user’s patience in building a “rapport” is necessary in improving satisfaction with the VUI which, after becoming more acquainted with the speaker’s voice, will reward him/her with more accurate responses.

Examples of voice user interface used today are apps that translate a word or sentence into any other language. The user clicks a button, and the device starts recording their voice and translating their speech, allowing the user to easily communicate with people who do not know their language. There are many other ways designers are implementing voice user interface and will continue to do so as this emerging trend takes hold and becomes a necessity in apps and mobile websites.