Bachelors Degree in Computer and Electro-techniques Engineering Hugo Monteiro Nº Marco Mouta Nº Final Project towards the Bachelors Degree. Nº119 IVR design for telecommunications operators Developed in L 2 F, INESC ID Lisboa Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa.

Hugo Monteiro Nº Marco Mouta Nº Introduction IVR platforms VoiceXML Application Demonstration Conclusion Summary

Hugo Monteiro Nº Marco Mouta Nº IVR Platforms IVRs, what and what for? Autonomous and modular platforms capable of establishing an interactive Human-Machine interface. This sort of platforms are designated as IVR (Interactive Voice Response), and are typically used in customer service phone lines such as those of telephone operators, insurances, banks, and airports. –IVRs enable an automatic interaction with the customer and as such have two advantages: They provide permanent service (24h). They lower significantly the number of calls placed on hold during peak periods. Introduction IVR Platforms VoiceXML Application Demonstration Conclusion

Hugo Monteiro Nº Marco Mouta Nº IVR platforms are normally equipped with voice synthesizers and devices that recognize Dual Tone Multiple Frequency (DTMF) inputs, but in some cases they are also equipped with speech recognition devices. Speech recognition devices provide the customer with an experience as close to natural as possible. IVR Platforms Introduction IVR Platforms VoiceXML Application Demonstration Conclusion

Hugo Monteiro Nº Marco Mouta Nº This project was developed as a component of the Final Project towards the Bachelors Degree in Computer and Electro-techniques Engineering. It aimed to create an autonomous and modular platform capable of establishing an interactive Human-Machine interface in European Portuguese. Standard: using open standard modules like publicVoiceXML. Autonomous: allowing two different work environments. –Laboratory environment: using local PC interface. –Real environment: using ISDN line. Modular: any module could be replaced, its only necessary to accomplish standard specifications, e.g. Microsoft SAPI. Main goals Introduction IVR Platforms VoiceXML Application Demonstration Conclusion

Hugo Monteiro Nº Marco Mouta Nº Until very recently, the IVRs were proprietary solutions: –Once an IVR was installed and operational, both the hardware and the software became the property of a single provider. –This type of solutions, proprietary and key in hand prove themselves limited in that a common programmer is not capable of developing new applications. Open Standards Introduction IVR Platforms VoiceXML Application Demonstration Conclusion

Hugo Monteiro Nº Marco Mouta Nº To overcome these and other limitations and with the primary goal of standardizing IVR platforms and applications, VoiceXML was developed. Nowadays, VoiceXML is considered by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) as the standard, describing interactive dialogues using as XML (Extensive Markup Language) a base. VoiceXML promotes IVR platforms and applications standardization. Open standards Introduction IVR Platforms VoiceXML Application Demonstration Conclusion

Hugo Monteiro Nº Marco Mouta Nº Typical Architecture VoiceXML browser Real time dialogue management. VoiceXML documents dynamic creation Introduction IVR Platforms VoiceXML Application Demonstration Conclusion

Hugo Monteiro Nº Marco Mouta Nº After a careful analysis of the different browsers currently available, we chose publicVoiceXML (PVX) as the VoiceXML browser for this project. Main features: Open source project, available in sourceForge. Telephony Interface: Common ISDN protocol 2.0. GNU/GPL license. Automatic Speech Recognition desired as future implementation. VoIP communication under development. VoiceXML browser Introduction IVR Platforms VoiceXML Application Demonstration Conclusion

Hugo Monteiro Nº Marco Mouta Nº PVX is an open source project and as such it incorporates the contributions from different programmers spread throughout the world. In its original version, which was the starting point for this project, PVX was incomplete: it did not contemplate speech recognition, allowing only for speech synthesizing and recognition of DTMF inputs. VoiceXML browser Introduction IVR Platforms VoiceXML Application Demonstration Conclusion

Hugo Monteiro Nº Marco Mouta Nº Browsers initial version Arquitectura do publicVoiceXML Introduction IVR Platforms VoiceXML Application Demonstration Conclusion

Hugo Monteiro Nº Marco Mouta Nº Aiming to implement a Human-Machine interface in European Portuguese, we proceeded to incorporate two speech engines onto the PVX: the Audimus for speech recognition and the DIXI for speech synthesis. Both the Audimus and the DIXI were developed by the Laboratório de Sistemas de Lingua Falada (L2F), INESC ID, in Lisbon. Browser development Introduction IVR Platforms VoiceXML Application Demonstration Conclusion

Hugo Monteiro Nº Marco Mouta Nº Browser development publicVoiceXML architecture after this project. Introduction IVR Platforms VoiceXML Application Demonstration Conclusion

Hugo Monteiro Nº Marco Mouta Nº Such as Visual browser, i.e. Internet Explorer, a VoiceXML browser may access to Web contents. Nevertheless there are some differences to consider: –Contents verbalization to present to user. –Allow speech answers instead of typical keyboard and mouse interaction. –Specific Voice Web servers; They handle HTTP VoiceXML browser requests, answering with dynamic VoiceXML documents to present Web contents to the user. Web server Introduction IVR Platforms VoiceXML Application Demonstration Conclusion

Hugo Monteiro Nº Marco Mouta Nº System architecture Introduction IVR Platforms VoiceXML Application Demonstration Conclusion

Hugo Monteiro Nº Marco Mouta Nº Modules: Server Main Gestor de Clientes Servlets –Login servlet –Meteo –Notícias –Voice ACME Web server Introduction IVR Platforms VoiceXML Application Demonstration Conclusion

Hugo Monteiro Nº Marco Mouta Nº Finally, once we had defined and implemented the complete system architecture, we developed a VoiceXML application based on menus with three separate services: Voice , Weather reports and availability to news reports based on RSS (Rich Site Summary) documents Available services Weather reports Voice News reports Introduction IVR Platforms VoiceXML Application Demonstration Conclusion

Hugo Monteiro Nº Marco Mouta Nº The presentation is divided into the following items: Voice – listening. – reply. – compose. News reports: –Listening latest generic news. Weather reports: –Wheather forecast for a Portuguese city. System presentation Introduction IVR Platforms VoiceXML Application Demonstration Conclusion

Hugo Monteiro Nº Marco Mouta Nº Main features: IVR Platform – publicVoiceXML –Speech recognition engines interface – Microsoft SAPI5.1 –Telephony interface: Common ISDN Access Protocol 2.0 –Local interface, Laboratory environment: local PC sound card. Portuguese(Portugal) Speech Synthetization and Recognition: –Text to Speech Engine: DIXI – L2F INESC-ID Lisboa. –Automatic Speech Recognition Engine: Audimus – L2F INESC-ID Lisboa. Final results Introduction IVR Platforms VoiceXML Application Demonstration Conclusion

Hugo Monteiro Nº Marco Mouta Nº Voice services Web server – Handles all the publicVoiceXML requests to access Web contents, allowing the user to access Web services using the telephone. –Specific Servlets are responsible to process the referred request and generate dynamic VoiceXML documents Aplicação de Voz VoiceXML VoiceXML application based on menus with three separate services: –Voice , –Weather reports –News reports based on RSS (Rich Site Summary) Web sites. Dedicated user interaction based on a XML Clients file. Final results Introduction IVR Platforms VoiceXML Application Demonstration Conclusion

Hugo Monteiro Nº Marco Mouta Nº O sistema desenvolvido representa um passo importante no que respeita à inovação e à convergência para standards abertos. Not yet a commercial version. The platform presents stability, making possible to show and understand all the emerging VoiceXML potential. Brings every day Web services to telephone user. For a commercial use, it is extremely recommendable: –ASR Lexical development. –Web contents treatment to deliver to DIXI TTS. Critical analysis Introduction IVR Platforms VoiceXML Application Demonstration Conclusion

Hugo Monteiro Nº Marco Mouta Nº Final Project towards the Bachelors Degree, developed in L 2 F, INESC ID Lisboa. Supervisor: Prof. João Paulo Neto Authors: Hugo Monteiro Nº Marco Mouta Nº Documentation: Final Report : Desenho de IVRs para Operadoras Telefónicas. Presentation Videos: Voice , News and Weather reports. October 2005 Introduction IVR Platforms VoiceXML Application Demonstration Conclusion