  People form impressions of their dialogue partners, be they other people or
machines, based on cues drawn from their communicative style. Recent work has
suggested that the gulf between people's expectations and the reality of CUI
interaction widens when these impressions are misaligned with the actual
capabilities of conversational user interfaces (CUIs). This has led some to
rally against a perceived overriding concern for naturalness, calling instead
for more representative, or appropriate communicative cues. Indeed, some have
argued for a move away from naturalness as a goal for CUI design and
communication. We contend that naturalness need not be abandoned, if we instead
aim for ecologically grounded design. We also suggest a way this might be
achieved and call on CUI designers to embrace incompetence! By letting CUIs
express uncertainty and embarrassment through ecologically valid and
appropriate cues that are ubiquitous in human communication - CUI designers can
achieve more appropriate communication without turning away from naturalness
entirely.
