Interaction with Smart Assistant

Abstract: Newer technologies are being developed all the time in order to help us in our daily tasks. Smart Assistant (SA) is one such broad category of devices which, when instructed through speech or command, perform certain tasks. Most SAs have two primary tasks: identify the user, and perform the taskcommunicated by the user. The task of identification can be achieved in severalways and one such method involves face recognition interface integrated within SA. Further interaction with the user is achieved via either a touch screen or a speech-based interface integrated within SA. Since the primary objective of a SA involves interaction with an individual user, it is necessary to identify users' concerns related to the usability of SA.In this thesis, the goal is to perform a usability study of Smart Assistant(SA) in the context of providing assistance in scheduling meetings at the workplace. Adopting a qualitative approach and we performed the usability study by designing a questionnaire to document public perception of new technologies like a smart assistant. We performed an online survey and collected responses from a section of the population. We also performed a similar survey with employees at Cybercom who have experience in interacting with the SAbeing developed in their company, and which is meant for providing assistance in scheduling meetings.In the process, we also provide relevant background literatureon human-computer interaction to contextualize the results of our survey. Themain outcome of this work is a list of guidelines to be followed for developing asocially interactive speech-based SA.The results of our survey indicate that there are several privacy and security related concerns that users have when using a face recognition interface and speech-based interaction. Although some of the concerns require technological advancements, a few of the concerns can be addressed by adopting certain suggested strategies.