Comparing voice and touch interaction for smartphone radio and podcast application

Abstract: Today voice recognition is becoming mainstream and nowadays it is also possible to include in individual smartphone apps. However, it has not previously been investigated for which tasks it is preferable from a usability perspective to use voice recognition rather than touch. In order to investigate this, a voice user interface was created for a smartphone radio application, which already had a touch interface. The voice user interface was also tested with users in order to improve its usability. After that, a test was conducted where the participants were asked to perform the same tasks using both the touch and voice interface. The time they took to complete the tasks was measured and the participants rated the experience of completing the task on a scale. Finally, they were asked which interaction method they preferred. For most of the tasks tested, the voice interaction was both faster and got a higher rating. However, it should be noted that in a case where users don’t have specific tasks to perform it might be harder for them to know what a voice controlled app can and cannot do than when they are using touch. Many users also expressed that they were reluctant to use voice commands in public spaces out of fear of appearing strange. These results can be applied to other radio/podcast apps and, to a lesser extent, app for watching TV series and playing music.