Social participation

Social skills that influence the way we speak conversationally and interact with others.

Having a conversation with another person involves speaking and responding at a conversational pace and providing appropriate responses for the context of the conversation. People who have social participation limitations may be affected by exchanges that aren’t familiar to them such as speaking with someone who has an accent or interacting with a home assistant with a synthetic sounding voice. When a device takes longer than a natural amount of time to respond to a command, it can result in confusion. If a person repeats themselves while the device is trying to produce an answer, it can further complicate the situation.

Aspects of communication such as pace, flow, social skills/norms and variances in intonation can be affected by conditions like autism, learning disabilities, or physical difficulties speaking.

Barriers

• Verbal interactions with a product (such as speaking with Cortana or Siri.)​
• Timed responses for verbal commands​
• Voice characteristics that aren’t familiar to a person (such as synthetic voices, voices with accents, voices that sound like different genders, etc.)​

Facilitators

• Ability to change voice gender, accent, quality, etc.​
• Ability to adjust the timed response of a voice assistant​s

Examples

BARRIER—We’re used to a conversational pace when interacting with people. If a voice assistant like Cortana interrupts too quickly or takes too long to respond, it can cause confusion.

FACILITATOR—Allowing the user to adjust the time allowed for a response from their voice assistant can makes conversational UI more accessible.

 

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The purpose of this reference is to provide concepts people can use to document and discuss aspects of function. Design should happen with people with disabilities, this reference is meant to support that activity, not replace it.