Designing for usability in industry-speech based services

This paper describes work in BT aimed at optimising the usability of speech-based information and communication services accessed by means of the telephone network. Examples of practical applications are included, with emphasis on the development of Call Minder, a network-based call answering service. Increasingly, usability is becoming the key differentiator in steering the design process towards producing services that customers will find easy to use and effective. The Call Minder project demonstrated that usability is essential to the uptake of speech services. Launched in May 1995, it already has more than 400,000 customers. We involved users throughout the development and identified numerous improvements to the service. Implementing such improvements in future speech services will yield enhanced customer satisfaction, increased return on investment and significant competitive advantage