Talking to Everything : Conversational Interfaces and the Internet of Things in an office environment

Abstract: This paper presents Cyberbot, a conversational user interface (CUI) designed to be used for information retrieval and interaction with smart Internet of Things (IoT) devices (smart objects), in an office environment. Built through the Research Through Design method, tested together with a selection of smart objects, the artifact was used to explore how CUIs can help office workers in their everyday working activities and the impact they can have on the usability in interaction with IoT, as opposed to more commonplace types of interfaces. Cyberbot was evaluated through user tests, surveys and semi-structured interviews. Results show that Cyberbot can be a welcome addition to an office and is useful for getting quick overviews of information from company intranet websites or smart objects that gather data from its environment, at the expense of more in-depth and detailed information. In general, Cyberbot can be said to be a usable and effective interface for IoT interaction.