This morning our San Francisco Chronicle didn't arrive by its appointed time, so I called the Chron's 800 number. I got the usual voicemail with voice recognition and started answering the prompts as instructed. After a few prompts I realized there was a subtle difference about the system. Instead of "dead air" while the system was processing my replies, there was the sound of someone typing on a computer keyboard.
I was vastly amused. Then (per my usual "look on the dark side" view of the world) I started wondering how many people actually believe they are talking to a human being. Or did the human interface guru or gurus determine that (even if customers knew that it was a machine) the sound made the interaction more pleasant? As I said, it made ME grin...
It is P. T. Barnum's "there's a sucker born every minute" or actual useful social engineering?
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