
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.
a
|