Pretty Please, Alexa
Users of today’s voice assistants keep asking for a ‘politeness mode.’ But what do they really want?
During my time at Amazon on the Alexa voice design team, we monitored the internal Alexa enthusiasts alias. About once a month, a newcomer to the list would resurrect an evergreen request: “My kids are rude to Alexa. She should only respond if you say please!”
That request, of course, isn’t specific to Amazon employees. In fact, Chaim Gartenberg at The Verge mused about this topic while I was in the midst of writing this piece:
Demanding that my phone turn on and off the lights started feeling weird to say aloud, which got me to wondering: was I being rude to my smartphone?
And we as humans should question the effect our device interactions have on our own humanity — most of all that of these digital assistants who leverage our socially wired brains for better effect.
But what are we really asking for when we seek a formal framework for politeness — like requiring “please” and “thank you” — in our voice user interfaces? If deployed coarsely, this seemingly helpful mechanic could unintentionally backfire. Better to take a moment and deconstruct the request. What’s the best way to model politeness in VUIs?
