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Voice XML: Chapter 7 Exercises

 


VoiceXML: Introduction to Developing
Speech Applications


7-1 Identify words and phrases for a yes/no grammar by using each of the following techniques:

A. Construct two lists of words by writing down all of the words you can think of that mean "yes" and all of the words you can think of that mean "no."

B. Ask two friends to repeat (A)

C. Conduct a simple wizard of Oz experiment with ten subjects by asking them a yes/no question and recording their responses.

D. Create a simple VoiceXML program that asks a caller five yes/no questions, and records the caller responses (use the <record> tag). Encourage ten subjects to call the application and capture their responses.

F. Compare the lists from (A) - (D). Order the techniques by the effort expended to obtain the lists. Order the techniques by the number of words each technique produces. Recommend a general approach for constructing a list of words and phrases for a grammar.

G. Retrieve the yes/no grammars from web sites with reusable grammars. (See the companion web site for a list of companies supplying reusable grammars.) Are there words in their grammars that are missing from your lists? Are there words in your list that are missing form their grammars? Do you recommend any changes in the general approach you recommended in (F)?

 
Name URL Reusable Grammars Yes/No Grammar
BeVocal Café
-

yes, yeah, yup, yep. ya

no, nope

Hey Anita FreeSpeech

yes, yeah, yup, sure, okay, correct, right

no, nope

VoiceGenie Developer Workshop

yes right sure okay yup correct true yeah

no incorrect wrong false nope

Voxeo Community
-
-

7-2 Write the following grammars using the ABNF grammar notation for your national language:

A. Months of the year. (In English, these include "January," "February, etc" .)

B. Days in a month. (In English, these include "one," "two," ..., "thirty-one.")

C. Years. (In English, these include "nineteen ninety-nine," "two thousand," "two thousand and one, etc" .)

D. Dates. The caller may say the values for month, day and year in any order.

7-3 VoiceXML has build-in grammars for Boolean, date, digits, currency, number, phone, and time. However, the definition of these grammars has not been standardized.

A. Retrieve definition for one of the build-in grammars from at least two different VoiceXML venders. Compare the two grammars and identify any differences.

Most venders do not specify the definition of built-in grammars. After using the following program to test the words accepted by a field with type Boolean

B. If an application is to be ported across multiple VoiceXML interpreters, do you recommend using default grammars? Why?

No. Avoid using built in grammars because the resulting applications may not respond in the same way if they are ported to another engine. Replace build-in grammars by specified grammars to ensure portability.

7-4 Many callers are reluctant to speak to a computer. Write a VoiceXML form field that solicits the caller's name. Include five noresponse error handlers that encourage the caller to speak his or her name.

7-5 Many proper names are difficult for a speech recognition engine to understand. In these cases, many developers record the name for later manual transcription. Write a VoiceXML form field that solicits the caller's name. Include 3 nomatch error handlers, with the third error handler recording the caller's name.

 

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