#If you need help finding a sample ballot for it and talking through the options I might be able to help | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mypuddinghasasecret · 3 years

Photo

[Page 1 front]

From the Desk of Erin O'Toole

My Name August 20, 2021 My Address City Province Postal Code

Dear My Name,

What happens now...?

More than anything else, that's the question Canadians ask me when I speak with them about the future.

Most Canadians - including me - supported spending money during the pandemic to help those hardest hit and prevent a total collapse of our economy.

You probably did, too, right?

But no one told Justin Trudeau's Liberals - and their allies in the NDP and Green Party - planned for that spending to go on FOREVER...

... and no one told you that, even after the worst of COVID-19 was behind us, the Liberals, NDP, and Greens planned to exploit the pandemic for risky economic experiments...

... and no one told you that, instead of focusing on a recovery that works for all Canadians, the Liberals, NDP and Greens would mortgage your financial future to finance a big-spending wish-list, dreamt up behind closed doors.

My Name, they didn't tell you any of that.

Did they?

Let's face it... The Liberals, NDP and Greens never told the truth about their big-spending agenda for a post-COVID Canada.

And when you cast your ballot, you'll have a chance to let them know what you think about them breaking your trust.

[Page 1 back]

But, in the meantime, I'm writing because I want to be straight with you about Canada's Recovery Plan.

You may be familiar with some aspects of Canada's Recovery Plan. I sent you a letter just like this one a few weeks back to tell you about it.

It's the Conservative Party's detailed plan to put our country on the path to fiscal stability by focusing on the jobs, wages, and Securing the Future for all Canadians. And it's designed to help you right now.

Of course, you likely have questions about how Canada's Recovery Plan will work - and what it means for you...

That's why, shortly, I'll share with you the specific details about the plan and about how Conservatives will continue to support those hardest hit by the pandemic while returning to a balanced budget over the long term.

But first, I think it's important I tell you what I believe this election is all about --- and why I'm so determined to earn your support for Canada's Recovery Plan...

This election is about the economy. And it all boils down to a single choice that YOU must make. You have only two options:

1) Make our pandemic-era spending - and all the debt and deficits that come with it - permannent.That's what you'll get with the Trudeau Liberals, NDP, and Greens who have NO PLAN to control public spending and NO PLAN to create new jobs.

Or...

2) A plan to create jobs, Secure the Future, and return to balanced budgets with a careful, cautious, long-term approach. That's what you'll get with a new Conservative Government, focused on implementing Canada's Recovery Plan.

My friend, I hope you will agree with me when I say that, at this crucial time, Canada can't afford four more years of a Prime Minister who lacks the sense of responsibility, long-term vision, and economic competence required to steer our recovery.

And we can't afford to send more NDP and Green MPs - who do whatever Justin Trudeau wants - to Parliament!

[Page 2 front]

Here's a startling statistic.

According to Bloomberg News, very soon Justin Trudeau will probably have accumulated more debt than all 22 Prime Ministers who came before him COMBINED.

If we don't change now, I'm afraid Canada will never recover and, for too many, our dreams of "back to normal" will never be realized. But it gets worse...

Without a plan to Secure the Future, I'm afraid our children and grandchildren will be members of the first generation in our history to inherit a Canada that's weaker, more unstable, and with less opportunity than the one you grew up in.

That's why I say this election is about the economy,

That's why now, more than ever, I believe Canada needs a new government with a plan to Secure the Future, and

That's why I truly believe our country needs you to support Canada's Recovery Plan in this crucial election.

Canada's Recovery Plan will:

Recover the 1 million jobs lost during the pandemic in one year by overhauling our tax system, reducing red tape, building infrastructure, helping companies expand exports, encouraging the safe development of our resources, and much more!

Balance the budget over the next decade by growing our tax base through more jobs and higher wages. Canada's Conservatives will carefully and responsibly phase out emergency spending - and we won't cut transfers to the provinces, like the Liberals did the last time they were faced with a large deficit!

In fact, under Canada's Recovery Plan, almost 90% of the federal budget deficit will be erased by repairing the economy.

Create opportunity for all sectors of the economy including in the industries Justin Trudeau left

[Page 2 back]

behind, like energy, forestry, mining, fishing, and manufacturing.

Support small businesses by incentivizing Canadians to invest in new businesses, providing loans to small businesses in the tourism, hospitality, and retail sectors, and making it easier to start a business in Canada.

My friend, the ideas I've presented you with today are just a small sampling of what's included in Canada's Recovery Plan, which you can find online at wwww.conservative.ca.

If you agree it's time for a new government that will focus on jobs, wages and helping Canadians right now, then I urge you to vote for Canada's Recovery Plan by casting your ballot for your local Conservative Candidate.

Thank you. Let's get Canada back on track. Please keep an eye out for my next letter. I'll be getting in touch with you again soon.

Sincerely,

Erin O'Toole

Erin O'Toole, Leader of Canada's Conservatives & Author of Canada's Recovery Plan

P.S. This election is about our economy. The Liberals, NDP, and Greens want this election to be about anything else because they have NO PLAN for our recovery and NO PLAN to responsibly reduce public spending after the crisis.

That's why they're using harmful, American-style politics, built around divisive and long-settled social issues to distract from their economic failures. It's a disservice to millions of Canadians who want a fair, open, honest debate about how we're going to rebuild our economy and Secure the Future.

The Liberals, NDP, and Greens may want me to stop talking about the economy, but I refuse. You deserve no less.

If you agree with me when I say the single most important issue in this election is the economy, then I urge you to take a close look at Canada's Recovery Plan.

Authorized and paid for by Conservative Fund Canada, Chief Agent of the Conservative Party of Canada.

#Conservative Party of Canada #Why did I even get this in the mail #politics #Canada #If I keep getting these then I'll post it on here

2 notes · View notes

badasscrossstitch · 4 years

Text

Voting in Illinois

Last week I asked my college students how many of them had ever voted (2 out of a class of 35 had). Only a handful were confident they were registered. I asked a few questions to see how much they knew about the voting process. This week, I put together a resource page and walked them through the myriad of options they had for registering, absentee voting, early voting, day of voting, how to look up their ballot ahead of time, how to research candidates, how to research judges and issues, and talked to them about their trepidation’s around voting. One student asked what this had to do with a business class and I explained at length about the impact that electeds have on everything that could impact their future businesses and the kind of world they want to live in. I then asked them how many of them were taught any of this before- 2 hands went up. I was SO ANGRY FOR THEM. All I hear is how young people don’t do this and they don’t do that and they don’t vote. They don’t vote because we have failed them. How can we expect to have civically engaged citizens if we do not teach them the basic logistics of HOW to vote. We let them graduate high school right at the age when they can first vote and we don’t demand that part of their learning include how to vote let alone how to vote informed. How is it that I have a classroom of voting age students who are brilliant and creative and inspiring and they learned more in a 30 minute crash course in voting with me in a business class than in their formal education prior to today? I hope they feel as much resentment as I feel right now and I hope they take that to the polls and show this country what is possible when we give folks the basic literacy and resources to do the most important thing any citizen can do in a democracy.

Here are the resources I shared with them.

VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE

1) Register to Vote

2) Ways to Vote

3) Know your Ballot

4) Do your Research

1) Registering to Vote in Illinois:

· You must be a United States Citizen.

· You must be 17 years old on or before the date of the Primary Election and turn 18 on or before the date of the General or Consolidated Election.

· You must live in your election precinct at least 30 days prior to Election Day.

· You must not be serving a sentence of confinement in any penal institution as a result of a conviction.

· You may not claim the right to vote anywhere else.

When you register, you will receive a voter registration card in the mail. It will tell you where you go vote. (Somewhere nearby your address). If you don't get one in time you can look up your polling location here: https://ova.elections.il.gov/PollingPlaceLookup.aspx (Links to an external site.)

Same Day Registration:

Illinois has same day registration. That means you can show up to your polling location with 2 forms of ID, register, and vote all at the same time!

On Election Day, voters who are not registered to vote can register and vote at their home precinct only. Any voter who is not registered and needs to know where to go to register and vote on Election Day can utilize the Clerk’s online Your Voter Information Tool to find their proper polling place by address or birthday.

Voters planning on registering to vote or updating their address on Election Day must bring two pieces of identification to register, one with a current address.

2) Ways to Vote:

Early Voting

If you know you won’t have time to vote on the day of the election (March 17, 2020) don’t worry! You can vote early (and you can register and vote at the same time!). Early voting takes place March 2-16th. There are dedicated early voting locations. Here is a list of the Cook County locations: https://www.cookcountyclerk.com/service/early-voting-locations

Here is the location and schedule for the early voting polling station closest to Columbia:

69 W WASHINGTON, 5TH FLOOR

69 W WASHINGTON ST

CHICAGO, IL 60602

Feb. 19 - Feb. 21

09:00 AM - 05:00 PM

Feb. 24 - Feb. 28

09:00 AM - 05:00 PM

Mar. 2 - Mar. 6

09:00 AM - 05:00 PM

Mar. 9 - Mar. 13

09:00 AM - 07:00 PM

Mar. 16

09:00 AM - 07:00 PM

Mar. 7

09:00 AM - 05:00 PM

Mar. 14

09:00 AM - 05:00 PM

Mar. 8

10:00 AM - 04:00 PM

Mar. 15

10:00 AM - 04:00 PM

69 W WASHINGTON, PEDWAY

69 W WASHINGTON ST

CHICAGO, IL 60602

Feb. 19 - Feb. 21

09:00 AM - 05:00 PM

Feb. 24 - Feb. 28

09:00 AM - 05:00 PM

Mar. 2 - Mar. 6

09:00 AM - 05:00 PM

Mar. 9 - Mar. 13

09:00 AM - 07:00 PM

Mar. 16

09:00 AM - 07:00 PM

Mar. 17

06:00 AM - 07:00 PM

Mar. 7

09:00 AM - 05:00 PM

Mar. 14

09:00 AM - 05:00 PM

Mar. 8

10:00 AM - 04:00 PM

Mar. 15

10:00 AM - 04:00 PM

Election Day Voting

In Illinois, you do NOT need to present a photo ID or any documentation in order to vote. You just have to be on the registered voter list. I find it helpful to bring my voter registration card with me and just hand it to them so they can find me easier.

Voting doesn't take long at all in most cases. Just roll up, check in, get your voting form, go to a booth, fill it out, return it to them, get your "I voted" stitcker, post on social that you voted, carry on with your day knowing you did your civic duty and used your voice to shape the country the way you see fit.

Mail In Ballot/Absentee Ballot - Illinois

Don't want to wait to vote on election day or go to the polls? That's cool. Get your absentee ballot mailed to you. Fill it out at home and mail it back! So easy. It takes 2 minutes online. Here you go... https://www.vote.org/state/illinois/ (Links to an external site.)

The ballot must be postmarked by the day of the election.

Primary: March 17th / General: Nov 3rd

Registered to vote in another state?

Cool! Get your absentee ballot from that state mailed to you. Fill it out at home. Mail it back before election day in your state. Easy.

https://www.usa.gov/absentee-voting (Links to an external site.)

3) Know Your Ballot

The primary is where each party votes on who they want to run in the general election (November 3,2020). You are essentially narrowing down the field in this election.

In the Illinois primary, when you show up to vote you need to declare if you want a Democratic ballot or a Republican ballot. You can choose either but not both.

The choice on who you want to run for President is NOT the only choices you need to vote on. Each ballot is different based on where you live.

Go to this site: https://ballotpedia.org/Illinois_elections,_2020 (Links to an external site.) and enter the address you used to register to vote. It will give you a sample ballot. You can then use the sample ballot to research candidates and issues. You can fill out your sample ballot ahead of time and then bring it with you into the voting booth so you remember all the folks you want to vote for. This will also make the voting process real quick.

4) Do your Research

This is probably the most challenging part of any election.

Local politics/local positions are SO IMPORTANT. Local elected officials get to make major decisions that impact your neighborhood, your city, your county, and your state. Yes, national politics is super important but local politics, I would argue, has an even greater impact on your day-to-day life.

a) Know your ballot

There are lots of ways to do your research. Knowing what is on your ballot will narrow down the amount of research you need to do. So be sure to go to : https://ballotpedia.org/Illinois_elections,_2020 (Links to an external site.) and get a copy of your ballot.

b) Researching presidential candidates

Currently, there are 8 Democratic candidates and 2 Republican candidates.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/us/politics/2020-presidential-candidates.html

Since there are so many Democratic candidates running for president there is a lot to consider.

I found this resource helpful:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/policy-2020/quiz-which-candidate-agrees-with-me/ (Links to an external site.)

It could help you narrow down where to start your candidate research.

c) Voting for Judges

When deciding on what judges to vote for (because let's be honest...what the hell do I know about who should be a judge or not) I use this resource: https://www.voteforjudges.org/ (Links to an external site.)

Ultimately, you cast your vote for the candidates that you believe will create the kind of country that you want to live in.

I hope this is helpful to you. I hope you choose to vote. As always, I am here to answer any questions or talk through anything with you.

Shannon

VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE

#vote #register to vote #how to vote #illinois #primary elections #elections #usa

74 notes · View notes

globalfinancialsolutionsasi · 3 years

Text

Global Financial Solutions Asia Lead Generation Success In A Few Simple Tips

Global Financial Solutions Asia Top service provider. Lead generation really can be the life's blood of a business or entrepreneurial venture. Knowing how to continue finding customers and clients for your enterprise is a challenge that can often feel daunting. Fortunately, by reading the tips found below, you will have what it takes to build your business in a steady, methodical way.

Make sure your landing page is ready for visitors before you generate a lot of promising leads. Your landing page needs to contain all relevant information and options to buy or download. If your landing page is constructed well, you will have a much greater chance of converting your leads into sales.

Test a small market sample if you are trying to generate leads in a new way or area of consumer spending. While online marketing can be very economical, you don't want to waste a lot of resources on something that's going to go bust. Test a sample and if it generates a few leads, go for it! Otherwise, simply live and learn and move on.

Reward your current loyal customers for providing you leads. One way that many companies do this is by offering their current customers referral rewards. These rewards run from future discounts to actual cash back. This can be a lot cheaper in the long run than any form of traditional advertising.

Check out local events in order to maximize your leads. If you're allowed to have a table there, you could hand out pamphlets and hold a giveaway. Just ask people to leave their name and email in return for a ballot, but be sure to let them know if you'll be adding them to a mailing list.

Global Financial Solutions Asia Professional tips provider. One thing you must do is to start and grow your "opt in" process for generating leads. You need a marketing newsletter or email marketing or mobile marketing plan for this. You can ask them to opt in on your website, through forums you've joined, blogs and in other places.

Consider long-tailed keywords. Don't overindulge in long-tail keywords, but a few well-chosen ones are specific enough to drum up business. Experiment and tweak as necessary, and you will discover the ones that work for your site.

Look at your competitors to see what tactics they use to generate leads. You don't need to reinvent the wheel when you are going to market. Oftentimes, your competitors have already done the hard work for you. If you see them using certain tactics heavily, there's a good chance they are doing so because it works.

If you find yourself waiting on line with other people, then chat them up. No harm when you're making friendly conversation, and someone there might need the information you're selling. Try not to barrage them with too much information about your product or service. Instead, use your conversation to figure out whether or not this is a potential lead.

Take a class which would better your skills and talk to the other students. They might just be honing their skills because they aren't very good at what you're good at, and maybe they can use what you're selling to make up for the fact they can't do it on their own.

If you're using a lead database, make sure it is well suited for you. You will want to get quality prospects for your business. A database full of irrelevant leads will be of no use to you. You'll waste your money and gain no leads at all in that case.

Global Financial Solutions Asia Most excellent service provider. Stay on top of the lead generation game by producing high quality content for people to interact with. Those new to Internet marketing usually have the most trouble generating leads, but when they learn that content is king, they are making the right step. Producing content that teaches consumers about new things is a good way to generate more leads.

Understand that while important, lead generation isn't the only part of your marketing plan. Don't spend more than a few hours trying to find leads. Use your other time for learning about your niche, getting better at marketing, and making money.

Develop strong call-to-actions in your marketing. It doesn't matter if its traditional advertising, email marketing or social media advertising - you need a strong call-to-action to generate leads. If you simply advertise your name with no desired action, all you are doing is brand building. You aren't at all developing the opportunity for generating leads.

Word-of-mouth referrals may seem like an old fashioned approach to gaining more customers, but they are like gold when it comes to generating leads. If you want to raise the stakes a little bit, come up with an offer or deal that potential customers can't refuse. You may even be able to come up with content that goes viral in order to generate even more leads.

You need to make use of social media. It is not going away anytime soon. It should be embraced by every marketer. It may be a major part of your lead generation strategy. The days of using just SEO to drive traffic to your website are numbered, so you should try and embrace it.

Take advantage of buttons that allow folks to instantly share your content. Having people "like" or "tweet" your content can gain it more visibility. By making social media sharing easy for users, you increase the likelihood that they will do it. This can have a wonderful Domino effect as people "retweet" and so on.

Global Financial Solutions Asia Proficient tips provider. Lead generation is effective as a tool to create business quickly for your company. If you are looking for a fast and cost-effective way to accumulate multiple clients at once, lead generation helps you reach interested parties with the products or services you wish to offer, priced on per lead basis.

It is impossible to overstate the critical nature of lead generation in terms of growing and maintaining a business.Learning to access valuable networks and information in order to gain a bigger clientele is a skill all entrepreneurs need. Armed with the material discussed above, you should feel well prepared to make things happen for your business.

#Global Financial Solutions Asia Global Financial Solutions Asia

0 notes

happinessessay951 · 4 years

Video

youtube

buy research paper

About me

Promote Academic Integrity

Promote Academic Integrity It’s like you’ve written the paper your self, however higher, faster and with an impression. While your fellow students still have doubts about purchasing analysis papers for cheap, don't hesitate to ask Copycrafter for writing help along with your homework proper now. Whether you in highschool or college, be at liberty to decide on an expert analysis paper helper to help you with analysis on your paper, outlining it, or the general writing. The revision section of the writing course of is important in perfecting a analysis paper. Have a friend, peer, or professional evaluation and revise your essay. Not only does Ultius provide custom writing, but additionally it is one of the best place to buy research paper enhancing, as well. The citation style of a analysis paper can contribute to the way in which it's organized. Some kinds require an annotated bibliography which is a quick justification of the worth of every chosen supply to the research. Each quotation methodology incorporates its own specific set of standards and each requires different formatting. Literature tends to use MLA, history typically makes use of Chicago or Turabian styles, and social sciences typically utilize APA formatting. Simply let your writer know where the supply supplies must come from and they're going to make sure to draw from applicable sources. A analysis paper contains personal interpretation and observations concerning a particular subject or argument. Writers at Ultius are experienced in producing high-high quality research papers and conducting research and evaluation for each and every order. Research papers could be constructed from a topic you've supplied or from one your writer chooses, whatever most closely fits your needs. Filing a type on-line is simpler and quicker than paper filing. It offers you a simple and customized approach to observe your case on-line. Value for Money – One of the important thing options of our research paper writing service is that it provides value for cash. We perceive that students are on a limited price range, so we strive to make our service affordable for everyone. Pay on your order using our secure payment system. The worth you pay will depend on the length of the paper, the academic degree and the deadline. We charge extra for papers with a faster turnaround time, so do try to place your order as far prematurely as possible. These are only a few of the key reasons students are choosing to buy papers on-line, there are numerous others as nicely. One of the most typical reasons why scholar choose to buy analysis paper online is a scarcity of time. Not only are there all the classes to attend and assignments to turn in, however there are usually plenty of further-curricular actions on campus too. Top papers showcasing cutting-edge methods and expertise solutions you possibly can belief are selected after rigorous evaluation by industry specialists. Christmas comes with purchase research papers online a substantial amount of themes. At first, purchase analysis papers on-line a variety of perceived as purchase analysis papers online it a celebration on the beginning of Jesus Christ. Santa Claus has taken on the far more excellent operate at Christmas. Researchers on vacation getaway buy research papers online tendencies have labelled him a secular variation of Christ, whose realm is abundance materially. Xmas is without doubt one of the purchase analysis papers online most essential capabilities cross the globe in the course of the thirty day period of December. It has developed from the celebratory event banned purchase analysis papers online in a number of international locations of the globe to 1 celebrated by billions. During the US, a ballot carried out in 2000 seen that just about 96 per cent on the populace celebrated Christmas . The fact is, purchase analysis papers on-line one can find number of vacation seasons viewed as as appreciable as Xmas. Workplaces buy analysis papers online and institutions, each non-public and non-private, shut down. From the briefest texts to research papers reaching 100 pages, our author will organize it accordingly. Short analysis papers have the advantage of masking a very particular topic, however can explore a category extra broadly as properly. A one-web page research paper can also come within the type of a Meta examine. The main advantage of commissioning such work from our writers is that you could ask for the analysis paper to incorporate all of the subjects or information. This is why writers take all your recommendation and directions into consideration. When you purchase analysis papers by way of Ultius, you're also paying for an professional in educational types. These are just a few of the numerous subjects that can be chosen whenever you pay for a analysis paper by way of Ultius. We have a lot extra samples for you to browse to make certain that our custom writing companies will cater to your particular wants. Our writers are highly skilled researchers with access to books, scholarly writings, and peer-reviewed journals. You will be able to talk together with your writer all through the process and the topic might be professionally researched and structured in the format of your selecting. Native English Writers – We rent solely Native English-talking writers. Each of them should pass spelling and grammar checks and provide proof of their educational qualifications. We require that each one writers are educated to College degree or higher.

0 notes

vaner93-blog · 7 years

Text

Audiences, everywhere we go we’re a part of them

There are so many different types of audiences that many people often don’t even realize they’re a part of one. Pretty much anytime you experience any activity or event, whether as a participant or merely as an observer, you’re a part of the mass audience. Over the course of my life I’ve experienced flash mobs, protests, rallies, various outcomes of sporting events, fights, crimes and tragedies. Some of which I witnessed firsthand, and others I was a part of the global audience watching things unfold before me through a cellphone, computer or television screen. The ways in which we become audience members has changed greatly over the years. In the 19th century, audiences (or crowds) were thought of as people who came together at specific times and places to experience some form of routinized behaviour (Sullivan, 2013). This notion differs greatly from what we consider them to be now, but still resembles what many people consider to be the limitations of the term “audience”. When I mention being an audience member to someone I know, they’re likely going to assume that I was watching a show, newscast or movie, or that I attended a concert or other type of performance event. The difference being that many people don’t realize that everything they experience amongst their peers or in any type of mass or crowd is an audience experience.

I’d like to begin by discussing something that occurred the other day when I was taking the Go Train into Toronto to visit my good friend that I found heart wrenching for a great many reasons. Being the type of person that I am, it’s no surprise to anyone that knows me that I found myself sprinting out of the parking garage down and under the tracks to barely make it onto the train before the doors closed and as a result of this, I found myself on the rail car deemed to be accessible for those with disabilities. Now because it was morning rush hour, the train was completely filled mainly by morning commuters rather than those who require the assistances offered on that particular car. Where an issue arose was when the conductor requested that a group of students give up their seats to an elderly couple that boarded a few stops down the road. Within 10 seconds, a confrontation between the conductor and the students had quickly turned into upwards of 10 people screaming at them along with the conductor, while the rest of us sat there watching all of this occur. All of us made a conscious choice not to intervene in any way and some people even had their phones out recording the incident to either share it with their friends or online. At that moment, we made a collective decision to behave passively in response to the clear wrongs that were going on in front of us and none of us made any attempt to mitigate the issue by offering to give up our own seats on the train or speaking up in any way. We simply sat there taking in what was happening directly in front of us, a captive audience within the lower level of a train car travelling rapidly toward downtown Toronto. The decisions people made that morning are an example of uses and gratifications theory in action. Various people were presented with the same situation in front of them and had the same options available to them. Some chose to sit there quietly and enjoy a little unplanned excitement on their morning commute, others seized the opportunity to do their good deed for the day by standing up for two people who weren’t in a position to stand up for themselves, some might have simply been having a bad morning and saw the student behaviour as an outlet for them to unload their built up stress before heading to work, and others sat there texting their friends or taking videos so they would have something to discuss when they’re on break or out for lunch later that afternoon. Regardless of how we chose to behave in that scenario, people inevitably will choose the outcome which they feel will benefit them the most either through feeling good about themselves or gaining something from the experience which they can take with them when they reach their destinations.

The next thing I’d like to discuss is one which many of us have grown extremely tired of hearing about over the past two years, though we’ve all become so drawn in to the global audience that reacts and responds to every crazy thing that comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth or through his tweets which many people often find so ridiculous that they can’t help but to think about them and discuss them with others. When I think of the phenomena that is the rise of Donald Trump, the first question that comes into my mind is “why and how did we let this happen?”. I say “we” in this context because, though I made a choice I now regret by not exercising my right to vote, I am a legal citizen of the United States of America and could have gone across the border to exercise my right to vote in the election. The answer I always come up with when I think about this is that we as a global audience, gave him exactly what he needed to achieve his goals. By constantly talking about him and so much exposure in the public eye, he was actually able to gain the attention of so many people that he almost became a running joke. What absurdity would come out of his mouth next? Who would he attack on social media for reasons we will never be able to understand? By placing these questions in our head, and continually discussing them, we became his most valuable asset in the election. It reached a point where he truthfully could’ve sat there silently during debates and there still would’ve been millions of people watching with their phones in their hands waiting for what’s to come. His very active global audience, even though many members off it hated him and everything he stood for, were spreading his message and his name throughout the country without him having to do so much as get out of bed. The results of the election showcase exactly what Plato was referring to when he stated that the common people hold all the power to make very important decisions within a democracy but often lack the wisdom to make the decisions that are in their own best interest or that will lead to the creation of a morally sound state (Sullivan, 2013). The press also, by presenting stories about Hillary Clinton’s possible wrongdoings, made the public aware of state issues that they would have had no other way of knowing. This did so much damage to her campaign that even retracting the story days later had still led to the whole thing being a huge boost for Trump’s campaign. It was a perfect storm, that led to a prime example of the fact that giving the people the power to make such crucial decisions can often lead to unfathomable circumstances. We now have a president who’s offending more people daily, and will potentially have to make decisions about how to proceed with serious world issues where a misstep could lead to war. The saga will only continue as more people continue to protest the anthem and we’ve only begun to see the havoc the president can wreak on social media, as he will soon have twice as many characters at his disposal.

Another topic that must be looked at when evaluating Trump’s election from an audience studies perspective is how shocked everyone who makes their living from tabulating public opinion could’ve misjudged the results so blatantly. Now forgetting about the various conspiracy theories about rigged polls and so on that we’ll never be able to prove or disprove through any amount of discussion, there are several explicable factors that could have contributed to this. The first of which is the notion of the Spiral of Silence, which proposes that many people feel oppressed or ashamed to speak about their views, beliefs or opinions when their opinions clash with what they perceive to be the public opinion on the topic. When pollsters acquire their data, they ask people for their opinion on various topics and where they stand overall, it could quite simply be that many of the people surveyed didn’t reveal who they truly supported because they were ashamed to be a member of the “minority” and didn’t want others to look down on them or have confrontations due to their opposing views on something as controversial as an election involving Donald Trump. Most of the people out there want nothing more than to fit in, and after hearing nothing but negative opinions and publicity about him on most of the mainstream media, they may have felt more comfortable lying about their position and simply expressing it on their ballot and only on their ballot. Another issue with the polls may simply have been that they failed to acquire a proper sample of the opinion of the American people by failing to incorporate enough people from the various demographics, or that a much higher percentage of people from certain demographics showed up at the voting booths than others. Regardless of the cause for this, the U.S. election is a prime example of how difficult it is to properly gauge public opinion, and that even once we feel we understand what the general consensus is, it can change just as quickly through the influence of the media.

The last thing I wanted to discuss was the amount to which people, including myself, now use social media as their primary source of relevant information about anything that’s going on in the world or for important news relating to just about anything. Now while this is quite convenient in many cases such as last night, when we switched our TV over to the channel showing the NBA opener and we couldn’t figure out why all the players appeared so visibly upset and found the answer in various twitter posts from the past two minutes detailing the gruesome injury Gordon Hayward had just suffered. There are also many cases where fake news, not Donald Trump’s version but actual fake news, is spread over social media and countless people take it at face value and contribute to its spread throughout the realm of the internet. For example, I’m sure every single one of us can recall at least one example of the internet proclaiming the death of a famous actor or singer only to have them step in and inform us that they are in fact alive and well. Social media platforms are a great asset with so many potential benefits to society and so many great uses, for example JJ Watt’s social media campaign that raised millions to help repair the city of Houston after it was decimated by hurricanes. Journalists, or those perceived to be journalists that post stories online, are expected by the public to be objective in how they present their stories. However, the stories we end up reading are anything but objective as it is incredibly difficult for a journalist to avoid adding their slant, or their network or newspapers ideologies and agendas, into their writings. Therefore, we as an audience must read things for the information within them while filtering out the biases or opinions that are in there with it. By doing so, we’re able to limit the influence of the media and be fully certain that we’re forming our own opinions and not allowing other to shape them for us. We live in a world where the media still has some control over what we know, but will you allow them to tell you how to think?

Works Cited:

Sullivan, J. L. (2013). Media Audiences: effects, users, institutions, and power. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

0 notes

csemntwinl3x0a1 · 7 years

Text

Is a VUI right for you and your app?

Considerations to determine whether voice is an appropriate medium for your users.

In the 1950s, Bell Labs built a system for single-speaker digit recognition. These early systems had tiny vocabularies and weren’t much use outside of the lab. In the 1960s and 1970s, the research continued, expanding the number of words that could be understood and working toward “continuous” speech recognition (not having to pause between every word).

Advances in the 1980s made practical, everyday speech recognition more of a reality, and by the 1990s the first viable, speaker-independent (meaning anyone could talk to it) systems came into being.

The first great era of VUIs were the interactive voice response (IVR) systems, which were capable of understanding human speech over the telephone in order to carry out tasks. In the early 2000s, IVR systems became mainstream. Anyone with a phone could get stock quotes, book plane flights, transfer money between accounts, order prescription refills, find local movie times, and hear traffic information, all using nothing more than a regular landline phone and the human voice.

IVR systems got a bad rap, resulting in Saturday Night Live sketches featuring Amtrak’s virtual travel assistant, “Julie,” and websites like GetHuman, which is dedicated to providing phone numbers that go directly to agents, bypassing the IVR systems.

But IVR systems were also a boon. Early users of Charles Schwab’s speech recognition trading service (which was developed by Nuance Communications in 1997) were happy to call in and get quotes over and over using the automated system whereas prior to IVR systems they limited their requests so as not to appear bothersome to the operators fielding their calls. In the early 2000s, a freighting company received many angry calls after its IVR system was taken down for maintenance because callers had to give order details via agents, rather than the streamlined process the IVR system had provided.

IVR systems became skilled at recognizing long strings (e.g., FedEx or UPS tracking numbers), as well as complex sentences with multiple chunks of information, such as placing bets on horse races. Many IVR systems from yesteryear were more “conversational” than some current VUIs, as they kept track of what callers had already said, and used that information to prepopulate later questions in the dialog.

The San Francisco Bay Area 511 IVR system let drivers check traffic, get commute times, and ask about bus delays, well before smartphones were available for such tasks. The 24/7 nature of IVR systems let callers do tasks at any time, when agents were not always available.

The second era of VUIs

We are now in what could be termed the second era of VUIs. Mobile apps like Siri, Google Now, Hound, and Cortana, which combine visual and auditory information, and voice-only devices, such as the Amazon Echo and Google Home, are becoming mainstream. Google reports that 20 percent of its searches are now done via voice.[3]

We are in the infancy of this next phase. There are many things that our phones and devices can do well with speech—and many they cannot.

There are not many resources out there right now for VUI designers to learn from. I see many VUI and chatbot designers discovering things that we learned 15 years ago while designing IVR systems—handing off information already collected to humans, phrasing prompts correctly to elicit the right constrained responses, logging information to know how to analyze and improve systems, and designing personas.

There is much to learn from IVR design. In 2004, the book Voice User Interface Design (Addison-Wesley Professional), written by Michael Cohen, James Giangola, and Jennifer Balogh, was published. Although it’s focused on IVR design, so many principles it describes are still relevant to today’s VUIs: persona, prosody, error recovery, and prompt design, to name a few.

This book echoes many of the same design principles, but with a focus on voice-enabled mobile phone apps and devices, and strategies to take advantage of the improved underlying technology.

Voice user interfaces?

The youngest users of smartphones today are incredibly adept at two-thumbed texting, multitasking between chat conversations, Instagram comments, Snapchatting, and swiping left on Tinder photos of men posing with tigers. Why add another mode of communication on top of that?

Voice has some important advantages:

Speed

A recent Stanford study showed speaking (dictating) text messages was faster than typing, even for expert texters.[4]

Hands-free

Some cases, such as driving or cooking, or even when you’re across the room from your device, make speaking rather than typing or tapping much more practical (and safer).

Intuitiveness

Everyone knows how to talk. Hand a new interface to someone and have it ask that person a question, and even users who are less familiar with technology can reply naturally.

Empathy

How many times have you received an email or text message from someone, only to wonder if they were mad at you or maybe being sarcastic? Humans have a difficult time understanding tone via the written word alone. Voice, which includes tone, volume, intonation, and rate of speech, conveys a great deal of information.

In addition, devices with small screens (such as watches) and no screens (such as the Amazon Echo and Google Home) are becoming more popular, and voice is often the preferred—or the only—way to interact with them. The fact that voice is already a ubiquitous way for humans to communicate cannot be overstated. Imagine being able to create technology and not needing to instruct customers on how to use it because they already know: they can simply ask. Humans learn the rules of conversation from a very young age, and designers can take advantage of that, bypassing clunky GUIs and unintuitive menus.

According to Mary Meeker’s 2016 Internet Trends Report, 65 percent of smartphone users have used voice assistants in the last year.[5] Amazon reports at least four million Echos have been sold, and Google Home recently started shipping. Voice interfaces are here to stay.

That being said, voice is not always an appropriate medium for your users. Here are some reasons VUIs are not always a good idea:

Public spaces

Many of us now work in open-plan office spaces. Imagine asking your computer to do tasks: “Computer, find me all my Word docs from this week.” Now imagine everyone in your office doing this! It would be chaos. In addition, when you speak, which computer is listening?

Discomfort speaking to a computer

Although VUIs are becoming more commonplace, not everyone feels comfortable speaking out loud to a computer, even in private.

Some users prefer texting

Many people spend hours a day on their mobile phones, much of which is texting. That’s their normal mode, and they might not want to shift to voice.

Privacy

If they need to discuss a health issue, most users won’t want to do so by speaking to their phone on the train ride into work. It’s not just privacy for what the user says to systems, either—it’s the potential privacy violations of a VUI automatically reading your text messages out loud or giving you a reminder that it’s time to take a certain medication.

So, should your mobile app have a VUI? If your main use case is hands free—such as a cooking app or playing podcasts while driving—absolutely. If people will use your app in a particularly vulnerable or emotional state, such as for healthcare or comfort, voice can help them. If you want to persuade your users of something, whether it’s to vote “yes” on your ballot issue, or to make sure they go to bed early, or to eat better, voice can help. If you’re building a skill for Amazon Echo, which many people use in the privacy of their home, voice is your only option.

If your use case is going to be mostly in public places, such as navigating a public transit system or for people on the go, a VUI might not be appropriate. If it’s an app people will use at the workplace, having a text messaging mode might be better.

Think carefully about your users and their use cases. “The main question to ask yourself is: Will your users benefit from a VUI?” Adding a VUI because it’s cool and trendy is not the right path. If your app would benefit from a VUI, design with this in mind from the get-go, and create an awesome user experience.

Conversational user interfaces

The term conversational user interfaces is making a lot of headlines right now. The trend is to make everything “conversational,” from turning on the lights in your living room, to ordering pizza, to asking the fridge whether you’re out of eggs. But what does conversational actually mean?

Let’s look at a sample exchange with a real VUI device: the Amazon Echo.

An interview with Alexa

Discussing this book over dinner one evening, I talked about the various people I’ve had the chance to talk to as part of my research. My eight-year-old son had a suggestion: I should interview Alexa. Sounded like a good idea to me. (Note: after the first question, I have left out the wake word “Alexa” that I actually did use at the beginning of each question.)

Alexa, how are you doing?

ALEXA

I’m good.

How old are you?

ALEXA

I was released November 6th, 2014.

Who made you?

ALEXA

A team of inventors at Amazon.

What’s your favorite color?

ALEXA

I like sea foam.

What do you do for fun?

ALEXA

I don’t have any hobbies.

Are you a robot?

ALEXA

I like to imagine myself a bit like an aurora borealis...a surge of charged multicolored photons dancing through the atmosphere. Mostly though I am just Alexa.

What makes you feel happy?

ALEXA

Music and helping people.

Who’s your celebrity crush?

ALEXA

It has to be Jarvis. That voice...

What do you think of Siri?

ALEXA

Siri’s a great app, but I’m different.

What’s your favorite movie?

ALEXA

The new Ghostbusters movie was really funny. I would definitely call those ladies, if there was a ghost in my machine.

Are you going to read my new book?

ALEXA

Sorry, something went wrong. Please try again later.

Thank you for your time.

ALEXA

No problem. I’m happy to help.

Do you consider this set of interactions to be “conversational”? In a way, it is; it’s a back-and-forth exchange of information. But it’s really just a series of one-offs. Each individual snippet is a simple interaction, and the next one has no knowledge of the previous; each one of these exchanges could be completed on its own.

Alexa does have a few skills that go past one turn. For example, if you ask her to order laundry detergent, she’ll remind you of what brand you ordered previously, and confirm that you want to order it again. She also has a popular “choose your own adventure” game. But most of these barely meet the threshold of being considered a conversation.

These “one-offs” can still be quite useful. You can order a car to pick you up, get your current commute time, and play a song from a library of thousands of titles.

But what many of today’s VUIs lack is the ability to go beyond these simple command interfaces—that is, to have a true conversation. To get to the next level, VUIs need to be able to remember the past. There are two ways in which the past is a key component to a conversation:

There’s the past from previous conversations, such as what you ordered yesterday, which song you request to be played most often, and which of the two Lisas in your Contacts list you have texted 257 times versus twice.

There’s also remembering what you said earlier within the same conversation—if not in the last turn. If I ask, “What time does it land?” after just checking to see if my husband’s flight took off on time, the system should know that when I say “it” I mean flight 673.

When you’ve enjoyed a good conversation with a fellow human being, it probably had some key components: contextual awareness (paying attention to you and the environment), a memory of previous interactions, and an exchange of appropriate questions. These all contribute to a feeling of common ground. As Stanford professor Herbert Clark defines it, the theory of common ground is: “individuals engaged in conversation must share knowledge in order to be understood and have a meaningful conversation.”[6]

If VUIs do not learn to include this type of context and memory, they will be stalled in terms of how useful they can be.

What is a VUI designer?

This book is about how to design VUIs—but what does a VUI designer actually do? VUI designers think about the entire conversation, from start to finish, between the system and the end users. They think about the problem that is being solved and what users need in order to accomplish their goals. They do user research (or coordinate with the user research team) in an effort to understand who the user is. They create designs, prototypes, and product descriptions. They write up descriptions (sometimes with the help of copywriters) of the interactions that will take place between the system and the user. They have an understanding of the underlying technology and its strengths and weaknesses. They analyze data (or consult with the data analysis team) to learn where the system is failing and how it can be improved. If the VUI must interact with a backend system, they consider the requirements that must be addressed. If there is a human component, such as a handoff to an agent, VUI designers think about how that handoff should work, and how the agents should be trained. VUI designers have an important role from the conceptual stages of the project all the way to the launch and should be included at the table for all the various phases.

Although VUI designers often do all of these tasks, they can also work in smaller roles, such as designing a single Amazon Echo skill. Regardless of the size of the role or the project, this book will help designers (as well as developers) understand how to craft the best VUIs possible.

Chatbots

Although this book is focused on VUIs, I want to briefly discuss chatbots, as well. Google defines a chatbot as “a computer program designed to simulate conversation with human users, especially over the Internet.” The word “bot” is also sometimes used to refer to these types of interactions.

Chatbots can have a VUI, but more typically they use a text-based interface. Most major tech companies—including Google, Facebook, and Microsoft—have platforms to develop bots.

Chatbots might be all the rage, but for the most part, they have not evolved very far from the original ELIZA, an early natural language processing computer program created in the 1960s. One popular exception is Microsoft’s Xiaoice, which mines the Chinese Internet for human conversations to build “intelligent” responses.

Text-only chatbots are not always more efficient than a GUI. In Dan Grover’s essay “Bots won’t replace apps. Better apps will replace apps,” he compares ordering a pizza using a pizza chatbot (Figure 1) versus ordering pizza using the Pizza Hut WeChat integration. It took 73 taps to tell the bot what he wanted, but only 16 taps via the app (Figure 2), because the app makes heavy use of the GUI.

Figure 1. Microsoft pizza bot example, annotated by Dan Grover.

As Grover says:

The key wins for WeChat in the interaction (compared to a native app) largely came from streamlining away app installation, login, payment, and notifications, optimizations having nothing to do with the conversational metaphor in its UI.

Many bots, however, use a combination of GUI widgets as well as text-based interfaces. This can greatly increase the efficiency and success of the interactions because it’s much more clear to the user what they can do.

Figure 2. Fewer total taps to use the WeChat Pizza Hut app (image created by Dan Grover).

Chatbots can provide a great experience for users who don’t want to download an app or add their credit card. Instead, they could scan a code, and immediately begin interacting with the service they need, such as ordering food, purchasing movie tickets, or finding out information about a museum they’re visiting.

Never add a chatbot for the sake of adding a chatbot. How could the chatbot benefit your users? As Emmet Connolly says, “Bots should be used to improve the end user experience, not just to make life easier for customer support teams.”[[7]]

Conclusion

When I was eight, my dad bought the family our first computer: a Commodore Vic-20. I quickly became fascinated with the idea of having a conversation with it and wrote a simple chatbot. When it didn’t understand what was typed, it asked for three possible suggestions it could use when it encountered that query in the future.

When I got my first smartphone, it was years before I used the speech recognition feature. I didn’t think it would work. Now, we’ve arrived at the point that I expect speech recognition to be available wherever I go; recently on a hike, when my son asked me what kind of tree he was pointing at, I actually started to say, “Alexa...” before I realized it wouldn’t work.

Although VUIs are becoming more common, there are still many users who are unfamiliar with it or don’t trust it. Many people try out the voice recognition on their smartphone once and then, after it fails, never try it again. Designing well from the get-go means fewer unrecoverable failure points, which will build trust with users.

We have many nights of blood, sweat, and tears ahead of us as we design our VUIs of the future, but it’s here. Let’s ensure that we design with care. Let’s use our knowledge of human psychology and linguistics as well as user experience design to ensure that we create usable, useful, and even delightful VUIs.

[3] Helft, M. (2016). “Inside Sundar Pichai’s Plan To Put AI Everywhere.” Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/.

[4] Shahani, A. (2016). “Voice Recognition Software Finally Beats Humans At Typing, Study Finds.” Retrieved from http://npr.org/.

[5] Meeker, M. (2016) “Internet Trends 2016.” Retrieved from http://www.kpcb.com/.

[6] Clark, H. H. “Language Use and Language Users,” in Handbook of Social Psychology, 3rd ed., edited by G. Lindzey and E. Aronson, 179–231. New York: Harper and Row, 1985.

[7] Connolly, E. (2016). “Principles of Bot Design.” Retrieved from http://ift.tt/2ci06Cx.

Continue reading Is a VUI right for you and your app?.

http://ift.tt/2xzZwXV

#FEED 10 TECHNOLOGY

0 notes

doorrepcal33169 · 7 years

Text

Is a VUI right for you and your app?

Considerations to determine whether voice is an appropriate medium for your users.

Advances in the 1980s made practical, everyday speech recognition more of a reality, and by the 1990s the first viable, speaker-independent (meaning anyone could talk to it) systems came into being.

The second era of VUIs

We are in the infancy of this next phase. There are many things that our phones and devices can do well with speech—and many they cannot.

This book echoes many of the same design principles, but with a focus on voice-enabled mobile phone apps and devices, and strategies to take advantage of the improved underlying technology.

Voice user interfaces?

Voice has some important advantages:

Speed

A recent Stanford study showed speaking (dictating) text messages was faster than typing, even for expert texters.[4]

Hands-free

Some cases, such as driving or cooking, or even when you’re across the room from your device, make speaking rather than typing or tapping much more practical (and safer).

Intuitiveness

Everyone knows how to talk. Hand a new interface to someone and have it ask that person a question, and even users who are less familiar with technology can reply naturally.

Empathy

That being said, voice is not always an appropriate medium for your users. Here are some reasons VUIs are not always a good idea:

Public spaces

Discomfort speaking to a computer

Although VUIs are becoming more commonplace, not everyone feels comfortable speaking out loud to a computer, even in private.

Some users prefer texting

Many people spend hours a day on their mobile phones, much of which is texting. That’s their normal mode, and they might not want to shift to voice.

Privacy

Conversational user interfaces

Let’s look at a sample exchange with a real VUI device: the Amazon Echo.

An interview with Alexa

Alexa, how are you doing?

ALEXA

I’m good.

How old are you?

ALEXA

I was released November 6th, 2014.

Who made you?

ALEXA

A team of inventors at Amazon.

What’s your favorite color?

ALEXA

I like sea foam.

What do you do for fun?

ALEXA

I don’t have any hobbies.

Are you a robot?

ALEXA

I like to imagine myself a bit like an aurora borealis...a surge of charged multicolored photons dancing through the atmosphere. Mostly though I am just Alexa.

What makes you feel happy?

ALEXA

Music and helping people.

Who’s your celebrity crush?

ALEXA

It has to be Jarvis. That voice...

What do you think of Siri?

ALEXA

Siri’s a great app, but I’m different.

What’s your favorite movie?

ALEXA

The new Ghostbusters movie was really funny. I would definitely call those ladies, if there was a ghost in my machine.

Are you going to read my new book?

ALEXA

Sorry, something went wrong. Please try again later.

Thank you for your time.

ALEXA

No problem. I’m happy to help.

These “one-offs” can still be quite useful. You can order a car to pick you up, get your current commute time, and play a song from a library of thousands of titles.

If VUIs do not learn to include this type of context and memory, they will be stalled in terms of how useful they can be.

What is a VUI designer?

Chatbots

Chatbots can have a VUI, but more typically they use a text-based interface. Most major tech companies—including Google, Facebook, and Microsoft—have platforms to develop bots.

Figure 1. Microsoft pizza bot example, annotated by Dan Grover.

As Grover says:

Figure 2. Fewer total taps to use the WeChat Pizza Hut app (image created by Dan Grover).

Conclusion

[3] Helft, M. (2016). “Inside Sundar Pichai’s Plan To Put AI Everywhere.” Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/.

[4] Shahani, A. (2016). “Voice Recognition Software Finally Beats Humans At Typing, Study Finds.” Retrieved from http://npr.org/.

[5] Meeker, M. (2016) “Internet Trends 2016.” Retrieved from http://www.kpcb.com/.

[6] Clark, H. H. “Language Use and Language Users,” in Handbook of Social Psychology, 3rd ed., edited by G. Lindzey and E. Aronson, 179–231. New York: Harper and Row, 1985.

[7] Connolly, E. (2016). “Principles of Bot Design.” Retrieved from http://ift.tt/2ci06Cx.

Continue reading Is a VUI right for you and your app?.

from FEED 10 TECHNOLOGY http://ift.tt/2xzZwXV

#FEED 10 TECHNOLOGY

0 notes

repmywind02199 · 7 years

Text

Is a VUI right for you and your app?

Considerations to determine whether voice is an appropriate medium for your users.

Advances in the 1980s made practical, everyday speech recognition more of a reality, and by the 1990s the first viable, speaker-independent (meaning anyone could talk to it) systems came into being.

The second era of VUIs

We are in the infancy of this next phase. There are many things that our phones and devices can do well with speech—and many they cannot.

This book echoes many of the same design principles, but with a focus on voice-enabled mobile phone apps and devices, and strategies to take advantage of the improved underlying technology.

Voice user interfaces?

Voice has some important advantages:

Speed

A recent Stanford study showed speaking (dictating) text messages was faster than typing, even for expert texters.[4]

Hands-free

Some cases, such as driving or cooking, or even when you’re across the room from your device, make speaking rather than typing or tapping much more practical (and safer).

Intuitiveness

Everyone knows how to talk. Hand a new interface to someone and have it ask that person a question, and even users who are less familiar with technology can reply naturally.

Empathy

That being said, voice is not always an appropriate medium for your users. Here are some reasons VUIs are not always a good idea:

Public spaces

Discomfort speaking to a computer

Although VUIs are becoming more commonplace, not everyone feels comfortable speaking out loud to a computer, even in private.

Some users prefer texting

Many people spend hours a day on their mobile phones, much of which is texting. That’s their normal mode, and they might not want to shift to voice.

Privacy

Conversational user interfaces

Let’s look at a sample exchange with a real VUI device: the Amazon Echo.

An interview with Alexa

Alexa, how are you doing?

ALEXA

I’m good.

How old are you?

ALEXA

I was released November 6th, 2014.

Who made you?

ALEXA

A team of inventors at Amazon.

What’s your favorite color?

ALEXA

I like sea foam.

What do you do for fun?

ALEXA

I don’t have any hobbies.

Are you a robot?

ALEXA

I like to imagine myself a bit like an aurora borealis...a surge of charged multicolored photons dancing through the atmosphere. Mostly though I am just Alexa.

What makes you feel happy?

ALEXA

Music and helping people.

Who’s your celebrity crush?

ALEXA

It has to be Jarvis. That voice...

What do you think of Siri?

ALEXA

Siri’s a great app, but I’m different.

What’s your favorite movie?

ALEXA

The new Ghostbusters movie was really funny. I would definitely call those ladies, if there was a ghost in my machine.

Are you going to read my new book?

ALEXA

Sorry, something went wrong. Please try again later.

Thank you for your time.

ALEXA

No problem. I’m happy to help.

These “one-offs” can still be quite useful. You can order a car to pick you up, get your current commute time, and play a song from a library of thousands of titles.

If VUIs do not learn to include this type of context and memory, they will be stalled in terms of how useful they can be.

What is a VUI designer?

Chatbots

Chatbots can have a VUI, but more typically they use a text-based interface. Most major tech companies—including Google, Facebook, and Microsoft—have platforms to develop bots.

Figure 1. Microsoft pizza bot example, annotated by Dan Grover.

As Grover says:

Figure 2. Fewer total taps to use the WeChat Pizza Hut app (image created by Dan Grover).

Conclusion

[3] Helft, M. (2016). “Inside Sundar Pichai’s Plan To Put AI Everywhere.” Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/.

[4] Shahani, A. (2016). “Voice Recognition Software Finally Beats Humans At Typing, Study Finds.” Retrieved from http://npr.org/.

[5] Meeker, M. (2016) “Internet Trends 2016.” Retrieved from http://www.kpcb.com/.

[6] Clark, H. H. “Language Use and Language Users,” in Handbook of Social Psychology, 3rd ed., edited by G. Lindzey and E. Aronson, 179–231. New York: Harper and Row, 1985.

[7] Connolly, E. (2016). “Principles of Bot Design.” Retrieved from http://ift.tt/2ci06Cx.

Continue reading Is a VUI right for you and your app?.

http://ift.tt/2xzZwXV

#FEED 10 TECHNOLOGY

0 notes