Research through Design / Data-Enabled Design / HCI/ Interaction Design Researcher & Designer
Call Me by My Name:
Exploring Roles of Sci-fi Voice Agents
2018-now "Awareness of Things" Project
Design Research,
Tu/Eindhoven, NL & NTUST, TW
Research Team: Yu-Ting Cheng, Guo-Ling Tasi, Heng-An Lin, Yi-Ching Huang, Rung-Huei Liang, Lin-Lin Chen

Abstract
Voice Conversational Agents (VCAs) are increasingly becoming part of our daily life. Calling them by their names can solve more than just a problem of efficiency in interaction between users and VCAs, but also can cast them as actors capable of playing a role in a relationship. However, due to the immature state of the technology and its related services, such relationships between users and VCAs can be limited in practice. To broaden the scope in designing different relationships, this study explores VCAs depicted in sci-fi movies. Sci-fi is not purely based on fantasy, but also is a social reflection on technology, which in turn can inspire design researchers to understand and speculate the complexity of VCAs. Through community sourcing with sci-fi enthusiasts, 43 Sci-fi VCAs were deduced. A movie event was also organized to discuss the role of VCAs. Finally, this paper presents several possible design insights for designing the role of VCAs.
2019. Late-Breaking-Work. CHI conference
Author Version PDF
