Utility Week

22 | 30TH NOVEMBER - 6TH DECEMBER 2018 | UTILITY WEEK Operations & Assets Market view I t is perhaps not surprising that voice has become such an important interface. It's as natural and as human as it comes. While voice has been around for a long time, its success has always hinged on the quality of the language processing, the problems we were seeking to solve with voice and a killer product. As we know, that all changed with Ama- zon Alexa, Google Home, Siri and Cortana; the world of interaction has changed and now "we" can't go back. Centrica has been at the forefront of voice adoption from the get-go – from voice-enabled IVR (interactive voice response), or piloting voice-enabled engineer booking solutions in its consumer energy business (British Gas) or within its smart home business (Hive). Voice is such an obvious way to interact with "things" – "turn on the lights" or "boost my heating for 30 mins" works for me or my 84-year-old mum. Interfaces that are more natural mean less friction, less confusion, less training – they just work. The best- designed voice solutions also just take you there, they don't disrupt the flow. They can handle some complex dialogue with some back and forth and turn simple requests or "intents" into actions. What makes voice more compelling as an interface for the smart home is its ability to become a unifying integration layer with technologies like Amazon Alexa and Google Home, allowing several different products to indirectly talk to each other through voice. A "turn off my lights" command won't care if it's a Philips Hue bulb, Belkin Wemo bulb or a Hive bulb – so long as they have all been set up to work with voice. At the same time, we have also seen a rise in chatbots. All those tapping fingers, A big shout out for voice What makes voice compelling as an interface for the smart home is its ability to become a unifying, integration layer between the customer and third party technologies, says Seb Chakraborty. find it equally natural to tap out a command in WhatsApp, while watching TV or simply facepalming into their mobiles. Chatbots and pure voice are increasingly backed by impressive artificial intelligence (AI) and nat- ural language engines, sophisticated proces- sors, and the power of the cloud. It's easy to overestimate where we are right now, because much of what is being designed is still using traditional commands on the back of voice request. They work really well for the smart home, picking a song, or setting the alarm, because the intent is clear and deterministic, and speed is of the essence. Any ambiguity to the request will only serve to frustrate the experience. It's clear, though, that voice is moving at a terrific pace and technologies like Google's duplex, which has the capacity to convinc- ingly mimic a human exchange like booking a restaurant reservation, is just the start of what will be a step closer to beating Turing's cleverly devised "test of humanness". At Centrica we believe that where voice could play a bigger future role is in the area of "peace of mind" applications, such as "assisted living". Aer all, voice is oen eas- ier to use for elderly people, who can use it to issue simple voice commands like calling for help, being prompted to take their pills and, no doubt, these will eventually develop into full conversational user interfaces (UIs) needed to one day play the role of a sophisti- cated companion robots. But we are all aware that it's easy to get the experience wrong, particularly as users begin to demand more than simple voice commands, they want deeper conversational UIs. At Hive, a user-centred user experience (UX) is always our starting point. Using cus- tomer research to establish the context, we seek to understand the current experience and what problems we are trying to solve. It's then a case of applying solid UX princi- ples, like reducing the cognitive load on the user, understanding what's required of the conversation and when it's necessary to be efficient and when it's necessary to encour- age dialogue. Seb Chakraborty, global chief technology officer, Centrica Hive "It's easy to get the experience wrong, particularly as users begin to demand more than simple voice commands; they want a deeper conversation"

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