An Experimental Study to Explore Usability Problems of Interactive Voice Response Systems

摘要

While interactive voice response (IVR) systems employing touch tone interface (TTI) are popularly used these days, they are generally known for their inconvenience. This is not only because of the characteristics that TTI inherently has, but also because of lack of understanding of IVR system users. This study is aimed at contributing to capture an understanding of the users, which eventually leads to better system design. In particular, we have developed an IVR system simulator to enable efficient, flexible, and rich usability tests for IVR systems. This paper presents an experimental study on usability of IVR systems utilizing the simulator. In the experiment, 41 subjects performed three different tasks concerning phone charges using the simulator to identify various usability problems. The analytic results are hopefully a basis for user-centered IVR systems design.