Barge-in: Part II

Here are 6 guidelines for when to turn barge-in on or off.

1. Turn off barge-in during the opening prompt

You usually want to turn your barge-in off at the very beginning of your application (unless it is used mainly by repeat users), where you are greeting the user and preparing them for the interaction. The same holds for the beginning of a new section in the call – e.g., a section in a survey.

2. Turn on barge-in when playing a menu prompt

Usually, the barge-in should be turned on while listing options, thus giving the user the ability to speak or enter their selection as soon as they hear it. However, in situations where it is important that the user hear all the options before making their selection, barge-in should be turned off. In either case, it is always a good idea to alert the user that they can either speak as soon as they hear the option they want to select, or that they will need to listen to the whole prompt before making their selection.

3. Turn off barge-in during transitions

Transitions are also sensitive points in an exchange, since they signal both the end of a phase and the beginning of the next phase. You do not want the marking of this important moment in the exchange to be marred by an unintentional barge-in.

4. Turn off barge-in when requesting confirmation

By definition, a systems requests confirmation when the consequences of making a recognition error are significant. Minimize the likelihood of interruptions when requesting confirmation.

5. Turn off barge-in when providing information

Minimize user frustration by reducing the likelihood of having the system be inadvertently interrupted by the user when the prompt being played contains information that is of interest to the user.

6. Turn off barge-in in error prompts

For instance, if a user thinks the system is expecting a date when in fact it is expecting a zip code, switching barge-in off so that the user can hear, "Sorry, I didn't get that. Please give me your zip code," would help the user recover. If barge-in is on, the user is liable to interrupt the prompt after, "Sorry, I didn't get that," and again mistakenly give the application a date.