The most annoying part of the experience to me is the menu items are always ~25 things I can trivially do on the website. No, I'm not calling to check my balance, pay a balance, update payment information, etc. I'm calling because your website specifically said that function isn't available online and I need to speak to a representative.

I think if you're from a certain era, you just pick up the phone first and want to talk to somebody, even if it might be pretty easy to find what you're looking for online.

This is also true for CLI interfaces. It illustrates the popularity of GUIs - much to the dismay of CLI enthusiasts everywhere.

Edit: Yes, a -help or "help" command can be used to list the menu. But then this command has to be known beforehand. What if a clever designer decides to use -assist or "assistance" instead?

IVR, is supposed to be 'intuitive' or 'natural' or however one's preferred marketing dialect describes it. The assumption is usually flipped - that tools are supposed to assist those ignorant of their use[1].

It has been a long time since normal users have been expected to use a CLI. If you're looking at one, you choose to. This is not at all true of IVR/Sirlextana.

[1] Of course, they don't serve the caller, they serve the robot's owner, so interests are only aligned to the extent the robot efficiently helps the caller with their goal, which adds an additional layer of opportunity for frustration.

swipes to the right

> Message archived.

No wtf.

undo

Guess it doesn't.

You really don't have this option with voice. On the other hand, when I visited my mother I was surprised that she figured out that Google Assistant can provide her with nutrition information. She would have never figured out by herself on a CLI or menu because it's very intimidating.

This somewhat contradicts my previous comment about how much I dislike voice interfaces but they probably have some strengths.

And you get to enjoy fumbling around trying to guess whether this particular program's magic incantation to summon help is "help", "-h", "--help", "?", "/?"...

On voice interface, your best chanse is to connect to an actual intelligent being as soon as possible because getting the options is a frustration by it's own.

If I'm saying 'help' it means I've tried that and failed, so it's not clear what the benefit is.

Think back to the earliest programming courses people take:

    What's your first name: Jack
    What's your last name: Ch
    Hello Jack Ch!

Linux Newbie:

"I need to find out how much space I have left on this machine."

  > freespace
  bash: freespace: command not found
  > diskspace
  bash: diskspace: command not found
  > disk info
  bash: disk: command not found
  > diskinfo
  bash: diskinfo: command not found
  > man disk space
  No manual entry for disk
  No manual entry for space
  > help disk space
  bash: help: no help topics match `space'.  Try `help help' or `man -k space' or `info space'.

  > df /dev/sda1
  Filesystem     1K-blocks    Used Available Use% Mounted on
  /dev/sda1       19478160 1370768  17094912   8% /

EDIT: Maybe I should have said 'CLI Newbie' - I am in no-way singling out Linux here.

    $ apropos space
    CORE (3perl)         - Namespace for Perl's core routines
    arpd (8)             - userspace arp daemon.
    CMSG_SPACE (3)       - access ancillary data
    CUDA_ERROR_INVALID_ADDRESS_SPACE (3) - (unknown subject)
    cudaErrorInvalidAddressSpace (3) - (unknown subject)
    df (1)               - report file system disk space usage

(Seriously though, reading the manpage for man is where I first learned about apropos.)

Google "linux how much space on drive" and the first hit tells you exactly what you need.

Another question someone might ask is "how do I change my password". Google for "linux change password" and there is a special help box right at the top of the search results.

apropos password and you get this enormous list:

  apg (1)              - generates several random passwords
  chage (1)            - change user password expiry information
  chgpasswd (8)        - update group passwords in batch mode
  chpasswd (8)         - update passwords in batch mode
  cpgr (8)             - copy with locking the given file to the password or gr...
  cppw (8)             - copy with locking the given file to the password or gr...
  cracklib-check (8)   - Check passwords using libcrack2
  create-cracklib-dict (8) - Check passwords using libcrack2
  crypt (3)            - password and data encryption
  crypt_r (3)          - password and data encryption
  des_read_2passwords (3ssl) - Compatibility user interface functions
  des_read_password (3ssl) - Compatibility user interface functions
  doveadm-pw (1)       - Dovecot's password hash generator
  endpwent (3)         - get password file entry
  endspent (3)         - get shadow password file entry
  EVP_BytesToKey (3ssl) - password based encryption routine
  expiry (1)           - check and enforce password expiration policy
  fgetpwent (3)        - get password file entry
  fgetspent (3)        - get shadow password file entry
  fgetspent_r (3)      - get shadow password file entry
  getpass (3)          - get a password
  getpw (3)            - reconstruct password line entry
  getpwent (3)         - get password file entry
  getpwnam (3)         - get password file entry
  getpwnam_r (3)       - get password file entry
  getpwuid (3)         - get password file entry
  getpwuid_r (3)       - get password file entry
  getspent (3)         - get shadow password file entry
  getspent_r (3)       - get shadow password file entry
  getspnam (3)         - get shadow password file entry
  getspnam_r (3)       - get shadow password file entry
  git-credential-cache (1) - Helper to temporarily store passwords in memory
  gitcredentials (7)   - providing usernames and passwords to Git
  grpconv (8)          - convert to and from shadow passwords and groups
  grpunconv (8)        - convert to and from shadow passwords and groups
  grub-mkpasswd-pbkdf2 (1) - generate hashed password for GRUB
  lckpwdf (3)          - get shadow password file entry
  login.defs (5)       - shadow password suite configuration
  lppasswd (1)         - add, change, or delete digest passwords.
  Net::LDAP::Control::PasswordPolicy (3pm) - LDAPv3 Password Policy control object
  Net::LDAP::Extension::SetPassword (3pm) - LDAPv3 Modify Password extension ob...
  pam_pwhistory (8)    - PAM module to remember last passwords
  pam_unix (8)         - Module for traditional password authentication
  passwd (1)           - change user password
  passwd (1ssl)        - compute password hashes
  passwd (5)           - the password file
  passwd2des (3)       - RFS password encryption
  putpwent (3)         - write a password file entry
  putspent (3)         - get shadow password file entry
  pwck (8)             - verify integrity of password files
  pwconv (8)           - convert to and from shadow passwords and groups
  pwunconv (8)         - convert to and from shadow passwords and groups
  seahorse (1)         - Passwords and Keys
  setpwent (3)         - get password file entry
  setspent (3)         - get shadow password file entry
  sgetspent (3)        - get shadow password file entry
  sgetspent_r (3)      - get shadow password file entry
  shadow (5)           - shadowed password file
  shadowconfig (8)     - toggle shadow passwords on and off
  smbpasswd (5)        - The Samba encrypted password file
  smbpasswd (8)        - change a user's SMB password
  ulckpwdf (3)         - get shadow password file entry
  unix_chkpwd (8)      - Helper binary that verifies the password of the curren...
  unix_update (8)      - Helper binary that updates the password of a given user
  vigr (8)             - edit the password, group, shadow-password or shadow-gr...
  vipw (8)             - edit the password, group, shadow-password or shadow-gr...
  xcrypt (3)           - RFS password encryption
  xdecrypt (3)         - RFS password encryption
  xencrypt (3)         - RFS password encryption

    $ apropos -a change password
    chage (1)            - change user password expiry information
    kpasswd (1)          - change a user's Kerberos password
    passwd (1)           - change user password
    PKCS12_newpass (3ssl) - change the password of a PKCS12 structure

    $ apropos -a space disk
    df (1)               - report file system disk space usage
    df (1p)              - report free disk space

man -k -S1 password

I use man and apropos all of the time, but I have no illusion that they're new user friendly. They're amazing when you just need to look up some options or get the syntax for a system call, but if you've not assimilated the Unix way of thinking they're quite obtuse.

Apropos would be a powerful part of a "help" command, but in 50 years nobody has ever written a help command that gained enough traction to be included in the standard toolchain.

Apropos doesn’t do it’s job because it isn’t named — or integrated with — help.

The tools themselves leave a lot to be desired from a UX experience too. Things like nonsense names, bad defaults and/or no inherent intelligence in the program, means you have to specify numerous options manually for things that should be easy to automate.

The whole experience would benefit greatly by telling people about things like man/apropros on first startup and other one time tutorials.

There are some days where I feel tempted to write small helper scripts whose sole purpose would be to rename/reorient the default experience/flags of various CLI apps, so that it is not a jumbled mess full of historical accidents that can no longer be changed.

“I need to find out how much space I have left on this machine.”

Now what?

"Oh there's an entry called My PC" (click)

"Aha, there's my disk and little bar showing the free space"

It's two clicks if you have your wits about you, maybe a few more if its not that obvious.

I don't know why you singled out Windows. It's just as easy in Gnome or KDE etc - the point here is that CLIs can never be as intuitive as GUIs. As the original article said - Humans are very visual people. Seeing things in a visual space is much easier for us.

Personally I think the experience is very similar for noobs.

But then again, why wouldn't the Linux guy search google in the first place?

Or if it is a total newbie, look for the disk icons, the information is there as well.

then it's a really bad one.

In a sense, the Google search bar is a type of chatbot, but we don't converse with it in grammatical English. It doesn't present as a human, so there's no uncanny valley effect. What gets typed into Google is a sort of lingua franca that we've all collectively learned through 20+ years of increasingly capable search engines. What we need is that level of lingua franca, but for a full, state-change-driving conversation, instead of just a one-step search.

It's not the machines that need to learn, it's us.

The uncanny valley effect, in my opinion, is due to the fact that 99% of our speech and writing is not dictated by content or necessity, but instead driven by social tendencies.

If I ask my friend to lunch, I'll text him "lunch?". But if I ask my boss out to lunch, it's going to be something like a paragraph, explaining what I'd like to cover during the lunch.

Most of what we say is a kind of dance to ensure other people that we aren't stupid. We don't need this formality when dealing with non-human entities, so speaking in grammatical language when chatting with a bot feels incredibly stupid.

Particularly, of course, they no longer care whether results include your required words.

One has to learn and re-learn how to get the best from these systems.

Aside, I'm impressed with Alexa on FireTV, but until it enters data in to the apps, and searches within media libraries, it remains a novelty.

I think customer service departments find them boring and want to automate them away.

Voice-based systems currently combine all of the limitations of human conversation (e.g., low bandwidth, strongly linear, possibilities hidden) with all the limitations of computers (e.g., not very bright, highly literal, inflexible).

I think the main reason they're so popular for support is that people are bad at accounting. If I install an IVR system, I see that calls to human agents go down, saving me easily measured cash money. But I probably haven't measured the time and cognitive load burden shifted to customers, or the value lost by suboptimal use of whatever they're supporting.

They already have those online, in the form of FAQs and knowledge bases that don't tell you anything new.

It's not as though the tones are harder to recognise!

But seriously, it's the same reason so many sites won't accept a credit card number with spaces in it. Someone writing from scratch the same thing that's been written a thousand times, but only thinking about the way they would use it (or the way they were told others would use it).

Because the boardroom got a huge boner when realizing they can do major cost cutting in the human department.

Spamming the # key repeatedly seems to work pretty well for this too.

Of course one can say that this is not an exclusively AI issue. Call centers, especially offshore ones, have the same problem.

Those strings are piped through a Switch statement of static responses, or fall out into the Default response. This was the situation in 2013 when I created a speech bot in Powershell, and it sounds like the state of the art here hasn't progressed far.

What's needed is logic to dynamically build the Switch statements, or otherwise better parse human entry and build responses. There has been much work on a few different fronts, but I'm not aware of any which were wildly successful.

Cloud services backed by big data sets tend to be better although I admit I haven't tried a local copy of Dragon Naturally Speaking for a long time.

In any case, at least assuming fairly mainstream American/English accents, the voice recognition isn't really the problem any longer. Sophisticated NLP and responses are. We're a long way from virtual assistants that can do anything sophisticated.

Amazing what they are spending to keep up illusions.