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Abstract

There are currently three efforts on-going to develop guidelines for Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems, though the data from these organizations are not yet publicly available, Lacking guidelines to follow, the question of what skills are required to produce a usable system remains open. It has been asserted that knowledge of human factors engineering is sufficient for this task. Our training is in human factors engineering, specifically interface design and usability testing, but not with IVR systems. So, when we were presented with the task of critiquing and redesigning a nationally fielded IVR system, we found ourselves in a position to test this assertion. Our experience of developing guidelines for the IVR system we analyzed, and the results of usability testing the existing design against an alternative design we developed, lends credence to this assertion.

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Human Factors Guidelines for Interactive Voice Response Systems

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