Raphael Thys
Illustration on avatar
We interact with technology in several ways and adding a visual aspect, an image to the persona we are interacting with, creates a more enchanting experience. Such an image may be connotated with a chatbot, a VUI or a GUI; is called an avatar. In this article, we would be looking at the use cases as well as some of the best practices for an avatar.
When to use and when not to:
Whenever we human beings enter an institute, take the hospital, for example, We get to interact with different people pursuing different roles. A Nurse, a Doctor, the Receptionist…. different roles have different attires, different demeanour, different voices. Consider a virtual environment with similar interaction, all these roles could be considered different avatars. The user might have his virtual avatar as well. In a more simpler system, a user might interact with a VUI which might have a visual representation or avatar. Users open up quite easily to an avatar instead of plain interfaces.
We all have the option of meeting people in different ways, by mail(text), by phone(voice) or in real. Interactions in the real world call for the need of an avatar. We might also use avatars for text and VUI, in case we need increased empathy, greater engagement of the user and fewer misunderstandings.
In a huge system requiring storytelling or engagement like video games, hospitality, entertainment or healthcare, the need for an avatar is firm. In smaller systems like setting your alarm or plain informative systems like search engine however the addition of avatars might be a hindrance.
One of the most common use-cases for avatar is a chatbot or a virtual assistant.
Application facilitating teamwork is another use case for an avatar. For eg. in the app Spatial, there is an Augmented Reality avatar of every team member collaborating in virtual space.
Best Practises:
- Avatar Persona:
We always annotate different people with different personalities and we might do it for a digital system as well. It is a good idea to generally identify the key personality traits of an interface and then design the visuals around it. Is the system obedient, authoritative, witty, loyal? These may be some of the keywords identifying the persona of a system. Company or product goals are an important factor to be taken into account while deciding on a personality. The response of a system to the events around might also be taken into consideration. For example, if there is an NBA league going on you might want to know how the system responds to questions like ‘who do you think will win?’ would form the personality of your interface. Deciding how to respond to abusive language is also something you can take into account while deciding the persona.
A strong personality might often result in polarized reactions, often in the case of video games. In a generic help app, one can stay away from a strong personality.
2.Avatar Voice:
The tone of the VUI is an important aspect of its overall personality. It should be decided by its persona. factors like product/company goals and the context of speech too play an important role in setting up the tone. If the application is something serious like a health check app the tone of the avatar is best when neutral and serious. Like it is listening.
4. Avatars & Error Handling:
Error handling can get really creative with an avatar. For example, if you don’t provide an input for a long time the avatar can look down and say “Haven’t heard for long. Is everything alright?”
Eye gaze is yet another important human conversational cue which can be used creatively in several ways to make an interactive avatar. For example, when you look away an avatar can do the same until you look back. Rather than stopping and saying ‘I didn’t understand’ when the user is not engaged, the avatar can look disengaged and look back normally only when the user prompts.
In a voice control, there can be a push-button in case a kid is using the app. For eg. In ‘The Winston’s Show’ by Toytalks, a voice will be heard only when the push button is down. This will make sure that the kid is engaged with the app and every time he/she disengages the voice is not heard. Such control might be a nuisance in any adult app. Instead, every time after the avatar is done talking it can go into the listening mode where everything the user says is heard. Here accuracy is very important as if there is a delay then the information might be unheard and missing.
5. Maintaining Engagement and Inclusion of awareness:
In the paper ‘Principles of interactive conversation interface’ by Harry Gotlieb in 2002 following were identified as factors to be responded with human intelligence and emotion, for creating an illusion of awareness in conversational systems:
a) The User’s actions
b)The User’s Inactions
c) The User’s past actions
d) A series of the User’s actions
e) The actual time and space the User is in
f) The comparison of different Users’ simultaneous action.
An example of this is if you ask to google ‘What was the NBA game yesterday?’, It responds ‘Raptors vs Warriors’. If you further ask ‘Who won?’ it responds ‘Raptors’, showing that it remembers your previous conversation which is important.
If a user hasn’t responded to for a long time the avatar may tap its foot, give awaiting expression and say ‘Waiting’.
An example is increased awareness is when at the time of morning an avatar saying ‘Good Morning! How may I help you?’
The same paper by Gotleib has tips for maintaining an illusion of awareness:
a) Use dialog that conveys a sense of intimacy
b) Ensure that characters act appropriately while the user is interacting
c) Ensure that dialog never seems to repeat
d) Be aware of the number of simultaneous users
e) Be aware of the gender of the users.
f) Ensure that the performance of the dialog is seamless
g) Avoid the presence of characters when user input can’t be evaluated
For example, the following is a conversation with an app regarding bills:
AVATAR: “Hi Thanks for calling Toronto Hydro. how are you doing today”
USER: “ I’m good how are you?”
AVATAR: “I’m fine. what can I help you with today”
USER: “I have a question about my bill”
AVATAR: “I can help with that. What’s the issue?”
USER: “There is a charge of 50.44 which I don’t understand”
People always like their stories via a narrative. Think of interesting ways to start the conversation.
6. Avatars & Complexity:
Avatar should be simple and designed carefully because if not seamless it may drag down the entire interactive experience. It is important to decide whether an avatar will be in 2-D, 3-D, will be just a face, or upper body or entire full form, will occupy the entire screen or just a part of it, how would it take care of emotions, expressions and lip-syncing. All these are deciding factors on how users interact with the interface.
7. Uncanny valley:
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley
Another thing to be aware of while designing an avatar is not to fall into the uncanny valley. It refers to the horror you feel when you see something very close to human but not very human.
Keeping in mind the mentioned best practices we can make sure that the user has a great experience with avatars.