Limited linguistic coverage for Intelligent Personal Assistants (IPAs) means that many interact in a non-native language. Yet we know little about how IPAs currently support or hinder these users. Through native (L1) and non-native (L2) English speakers interacting with Google Assistant on a smartphone and smart speaker, we aim to understand this more deeply. Interviews revealed that L2 speakers prioritised utterance planning around perceived linguistic limitations, as opposed to L1 speakers prioritising succinctness because of system limitations. L2 speakers see IPAs as insensitive to linguistic needs resulting in failed interaction. L2 speakers clearly preferred using smartphones, as visual feedback supported diagnoses of communication breakdowns whilst allowing time to process query results. Conversely, L1 speakers preferred smart speakers, with audio feedback being seen as sufficient. We discuss the need to tailor the IPA experience for L2 users, emphasising visual feedback whilst reducing the burden of language production. CCS Concepts • Human-centered computing → User studies; Natural language interfaces; Accessibility design and evaluation methods.

Through smartphones and smart speakers, intelligent personal assistants (IPAs) have made speech a common interaction modality. With linguistic coverage and varying functionality levels, many speakers engage with IPAs using a non-native language. This may impact mental workload and patterns of language production used by non-native speakers. We present a mixed-design experiment, where native (L1) and non-native (L2) English speakers completed tasks with IPAs via smartphones and smart speakers. We found significantly higher mental workload for L2 speakers in IPA interactions. Contrary to our hypotheses, we found no significant differences between L1 and L2 speakers in number of turns, lexical complexity, diversity, or lexical adaptation when encountering errors. These findings are discussed in relation to language production and processing load increases for L2 speakers in IPA interaction. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → User studies; Natural language interfaces; HCI theory, concepts and models.

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