CP SC 881 Spoken Language Systems

2 of 23 Auditory User Interfaces Welcome to SLS Syllabus Introduction

3 of 23 Good Design (our goal!) “Every designer wants to build a high-quality interactive system that is admired by colleagues, celebrated by users, circulated widely, and imitated frequently.” (Shneiderman, 1992, p.7) …and anything goes!…

4 of 23 Auditory User Interfaces An Auditory user interface (AUI) is an interface which relies primarily or exclusively on audio for interaction, including speech and sound. (Weinschenk & Barker 2000)

5 of 23 Auditory User Interfaces Natural Language/Speech User Interfaces Conversation is natural Multimodal User Interfaces Combines voice, text, graphics, gestures, keypad, stylus, etc. into one interface

6 of 23 Multimodal User Interfaces Simultaneous Multimodality Multiple modes at the same time, voice-visual Sequential Multimodality Uses multiple modes sequentially and seamlessly

7 of 23 But What Makes a Good VUI? Functionality Speed & efficiency Reliability, security, data integrity Standardization, consistency USABILITY !

8 of 23 Closer to Fine: A Philosophy …The human user of any system is the focus of the design process. Planning and implementation is done with the user in mind, and the system is made to fit the user, not the other way around…. Bruce Walker Georgia Institute of Technology

9 of 23 How Do You Know It’s Good?! Usability Test and Evaluation

Human Factors in Speech

11 of 23 Human Factors in Speech High Error Rates Speech recognition Background noise, intonation, pitch, volume Grammars (missing words, size limitations) “When speech recognition becomes genuinely reliable, this will cause another big change in operating systems.” (Bill Gates, The Road Ahead 1995)

12 of 23 Human Factors in Speech Unpredictable Errors Grammars Sound alike words Austin-Boston Missing Words Grammar Size Limitations Note: We do not like using unpredictable machines.

13 of 23 Human Factors in Speech User Expectations Novice users have high expectations of computers and speech Natural Language Novices expect to say “anything” to the machine i.e. Star Trek Spoken Language differs from written language. i.e. ums or uhs appear in spoken language

14 of 23 Human Factors in Speech Memory Speech only systems can be taxing on human memory, i.e. large telephone menu systems. Miller - 7 plus or minus 2

Definitions and Terms

16 of 23 Speech Recognition Refers to the technologies that enable computing devices to identify the sound of human voice. List all the Clemson University orders.

17 of 23 Speech Recognition Continuous Recognition Allows a user to speak to the system in an everyday manner without using specific, learned commands. Discrete Recognition Recognizes a limited vocabulary of individual words and phrases spoken by a person.

18 of 23 Speech Recognition Word Spotting Recognizes predefined words or phrases. Used by discrete recognition applications. “Computer I want to surf the Web” “Hey, I would like to surf the Web”

19 of 23 Speech Recognition Voice Verification or Speaker Identification Voice verification is the science of verifying a person's identity on the basis of their voice characteristics. Unique features of a person's voice are digitized and compared with the individual's pre-recorded "voiceprint" sample stored in the database for identity verification. It is different from speech recognition because the technology does not recognize the spoken word itself.

20 of 23 Speech Synthesis Refers to the technologies that enable computing devices to output simulated human speech. James, here are the Clemson University orders.

21 of 23 Speech Synthesis Formant Synthesis Uses a set of phonological rules to control an audio waveform that simulates human speech. Sounds like a robot, very synthetic, but getting better.

22 of 23 Speech Synthesis Concatenated Synthesis Uses computer assembly of recorded voice sounds to create meaningful speech output. Sounds very human, most people can’t tell the difference.

23 of 23 Uses of Speech Technologies Interactive Voice Response Systems Call centers Medical, Legal, Business, Commercial, Warehouse Handheld Devices Toys and Education Automobile Industry Universal Access (visual/physical impaired)