How voice interface influences users' music experience: An exploratory study using YouTube videos

Abstract

Background Voice-user interface(VUI), a new interface that enables people to have vocal communication with the system, is recently being commercialized. However, the affects of VUI on users' daily lives and behavioral patterns have not been fully explored. Methods To identify user needs emerged from the new interface, especially focusing on music service, which is a key service domain of voice interface, we observe 25 AI speaker users' video clips on YouTube by applying a digital ethnography method. Results From the results of the observation, we classified 29 most common functions of music service found in voice interface. We also found that users, while using VUI, unify multifunctions into a single sentence to activate music retrieval service, struggle to operate music-player options through spoken language, and use melody to communicate with the system. Conclusions Our study indicates that there is a strong need for service/functions expansion in VUI, which can go beyond the functions of graphic-user interface, and maximizes the strengths of voice-based conversational interface. With these findings, we discuss design implications for music service conveyed via VUI.