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Synthetic-speech interfaces, on the other hand, should never use “I.” As the experiment
showed, there was no case in which the use of “I” made the synthetic-speech interface seem
better, and in many cases, the benefits of avoiding “I” were clearly significant.
CONCLUSION
When William James (James, 1890) marveled at the “blooming, buzzing confusion” of life, he was
trying to understand how babies could eventually make sense of and integrate the constantly
changing stimuli impinging upon their senses. Eventually, he noted, babies figure out that the phys-
ical world is not all that complicated a place. Drop anything and it falls to the ground. Even if it
rolls under a table, it still exists. Even the imponderable is remarkably simple: Every snowflake
may be different, but for everyone besides meteorologists, they are all the same. Though water
spins down the drain in opposite directions in the northern and southern hemispheres, the physical
world works in much the same way throughout the Earth. For all the seeming complexity of the
universe, then, people do not have to be Newtons or Einsteins to cope with and comprehend the
way the world works: managing the physical world is relatively simple and straightforward.
Although children acquire a virtually adult-like understanding of the physical world by the age of
eight or so (Piaget, 1960; Piaget and Inhelder, 2000), the social world remains extraordinarily com-
plex throughout adulthood. There are no laws of human behavior that are as reliable as any physical
law. The differences between each person, unlike the differences between snowflakes, are highly con-
sequential. In contrast to the virtual uniformity of the physical world, every new location seems to
present multiple new cultures with mysterious and unpredictable attitudes, norms, and behaviors.
The world of interfaces may parallel these complexities. Although the world of GUIs, like the
physical world, might seem initially complex, in a relatively short time users understand that there
is not all that much going on in graphical user interfaces. The limitations of GUIs, coupled with
designers' almost religious belief in the virtues of consistency across applications and domains,
dramatically enhance the reliability of the users' conclusions. GUIs, like the physical world, are
accessible to everyone.
As interfaces began including social representations such as voices, designers became respon-
sible for an extraordinarily rich and complex world that they and their users can barely manage in
daily life. Although the rules of GUIs can be neatly encapsulated, the rules of social life are too
complex and rich to be captured—that is one reason why advice columnists are so popular!
Unfortunately, while designers can justifiably plead ignorance of the complexities of the social
world, users will nonetheless bring to bear the full range of social rules and expectations with
which they guide their interactions with other people.
Even the seemingly simple problem of ensuring that the various aspects of an interface are
socially consistent turned out to be extremely subtle and nuanced. If one then wishes to take the
small step of thinking about consistency between the characteristics of the interface and the user
as well, the situation becomes even more complex. For example, how does a designer select the
personality of the voice when the user is extroverted and the language of the Web site is intro-
verted? (Nass and Brave, 2005; Nass and Lee, 2001) Now include politeness (Nass, 2004; Nass
et al., 1999), flattery (Fogg and Nass, 1997), specialization (Nass et al., 1996), among thousands
of other social domains, and the designer begs for mercy! Will designers feel overwhelmed and
simply adopt “standards,” no matter how far removed they are from the realities of social life?
Will they opt for a set of consistent rules, no matter how foolish (Emerson, 1990)?
We need not be pessimistic. Even the most suave person does not know all of the social rules
of interaction, and other people, situational constraints, cognitive distractions, and a host of other
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