During my senior year I was selected to work as a UX Researcher on a project with Microsoft through Western Washington University with the task of exploring voice technology in higher education. For this project I worked with 2 other students with guidance from a Senior UX Researcher at Microsoft over 3 months and ended with a presentation to the Microsoft devices team in Redmond, WA.

To start off we scoured the internet to learn everything we could about voice technology and specifically how voice technology has been applied in higher education. We found that some schools had implemented Amazon Echo devices in dorms and supplied them to students to help with studying.

We started with a survey to get general information about how college students feel about voice technology in order to direct our later research.

We are conducting research on how students perceive and use (or don’t use) voice recognition technology. Voice recognition technology is the ability of a machine or program to receive and interpret information or understand commands. Voice recognition technologies may be on your phone, personal computer, tablet, home voice assistant device, or vehicle display, to name a few.
We would like to hear your thoughts on voice recognition technology. The following survey should take fewer than 15 minutes, and your responses are completely anonymous. If you have any questions about the survey, please contact us at: ricee5@wwu.edu

Introductory Questions
What voice assistants are you familiar with?
Do you use a voice assistant at home?
Do you use a voice assistant on your phone?

Uses Voice Technology
‍What made you decide to purchase a voice device?
Did you interact with a voice device before purchasing yours?
How often do you use voice technology?
How long have you owned your voice device?
Which voice technology-enabled devices do you use?
In what ways do you use voice technology?
In what physical locations do you use voice technology? Ex: at home, in the car, walking between classes, etc.Do you use your voice assistant to control any smart home devices?Is there anything you would like to use your voice assistant for but don't? Why?
Do you ever use voice technology to aid in school-based or academic work?

Do Not Use Voice Technology
‍Have you considered purchasing a voice device?
If yes, why haven’t you purchased one?
Why don’t you use voice technology?

Concerns
‍What do you think about being able to ask a voice assistant for your personal school-based or academic information (e.g., your grades, financial aid)?
Open endedDo you have concerns about voice technology?

‍Agreement
‍Please indicate the degree to which you agree or disagree with the following statements.Voice assistants provide accurate information.
Voice assistants make people more productive.
I am confident that my speech will be accurately recognized by voice-enabled technology.
I am comfortable with voice technology
Voice assistants only listen to me when prompted
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Demographics
‍What is your age?
What is your gender?
What is your race/ethnicity?
What is your annual income?
What is your major or intended major?
What is your current year in school?

Over the course of 3 weeks we interviewed 12 students that were recruited through WWU's Psychology Department.

Have you ever used any kind of voice recognition service or device?
How often do you use voice recognition services or devices?
What, if any, are the most common interactions that you have with voice technologies?
When was the last time you used voice recognition? Tell me about this experience.
In what physical locations do you most often use voice technologies? For example, this could be in your home, in your car, and so on.
What, if anything, do you particularly like about voice recognition services or devices?
What, if anything, do you particularly dislike about voice recognition services or devices?
Do you ever use voice technology for school-related tasks? How so?
Is there anything that you wish you could do with voice technology? What?
Do you feel that voice technology is easy to use?
What could be done to improve voice technologies and devices?
Do you think voice technologies make people more productive?
Do you have any concerns with voice recognition technology?

Following our interviews we conducted a second qualitative survey to gather insight into the main themes we had gathered from our previous research. We recruited people through MechanicalTurk and got about 500 responses. This survey had 4 sections that were from themes found in the results from the first survey and the interviews; Usage, Awareness of Capabilities, Security, and Comfort.

COMFORT - Using it in a public space, why don’t we want to use voice in a public place? 19 respondents said they either “disagree” or “strongly disagree” with “being comfortable using voice technolgy in public spaces”

TRUST - Students only use it for basic tasks because they don't trust the device to complete complex tasks. How do we build trust?

USE CASES - How do students use voice? What could they use it for? Ex: What would the ideal research assistant look like? What would it do?

CONSUMER AWARENESS OF CAPABILITIES - People don’t fully know how to use their devices for desired tasks (essay dictation, note taking).People use voice technology for very simple tasks (e.g., playing music, checking the weather, setting a timer).
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Many people reported using voice technology exclusively in the home.
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When people said that they did use voice technology for studying, it was mainly for simple tasks (e.g, calculating numbers, reminding them of “simple concepts.”)
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What people seem to enjoy most about voice technology is its “efficiency”
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People said they are hesitant to use voice technology for school-related work because it isn’t always “accurate,” it can become a “distraction,” and it isn’t the most effective way to learn.
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People report that they wish they could use voice technology to do the following tasks (most of which are already capabilities of VT):Read textbooks out loud, Reading flashcards, Writing papers, Writing a timed essay, Checking grades, Math problems, Typing notes, “Getting help for information you don’t understand”,  and “Locations”

People seem to be uncomfortable using voice technology in spaces where they may be overheard by others.

BUILD TRUST - Building trust with voice technology is important to aid in student usage of voice and feelings towards security, accuracy, and voice in the classroom. This can be done through transparency, consistency, and designing for everyone.

‍INDIVIDUAL FIRST - Introduce voice technology on an individual or household basis before transitioning to collaborative or public settings. This will help students adopt voice more naturally.

MAKE IT EASY - Once introduced in the classroom have solutions set up and mapped out for students. This will help ease confusion and aid integration.

BUILD TRUST - Building trust with voice technology is important to aid in student usage of voice and feelings towards security, accuracy, and voice in the classroom. This can be done through transparency, consistency, and designing for everyone.

‍INDIVIDUAL FIRST - Introduce voice technology on an individual or household basis before transitioning to collaborative or public settings. This will help students adopt voice more naturally.

MAKE IT EASY - Once introduced in the classroom have solutions set up and mapped out for students. This will help ease confusion and aid integration.