A voice service for user feedback on school meals

Abstract

Research using voice-based services as a technology platform for providing information access and services within developing world regions has shown much promise. The results for design and deployment of such voice-based services have varied depending on the application domain, user community and context. In this paper we describe our work on developing a voice-based service for obtaining feedback from school children, a previously unexplored user community. Through a user study, focus group discussions and observations of learners' interaction with multiple design prototype versions, we investigated several factors around input modality preference, language preference, performance and overall user experience. Whilst no significant differences were observed for performance across the prototypes, there were strong preferences for speech (input modality) and English (language). Focus group discussions revealed rich information on learner's perceptions around trust, confidentiality and general system usage. We highlight several design changes made and provide further recommendations on designing for this user community.