UW News
Yeqi Chen
August 6, 2018
Alexa, be my friend: Children talk to technology, but how does it respond?
![](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2018/08/06081544/voice-interface-duck-150x150.jpg)
When young children talk to voice-activated technologies, the devices don’t always respond in a helpful way. A new University of Washington study suggests that these interfaces could be designed to be more responsive – repeating or prompting the user, for example – and be more useful to more people.