May/June 2006

Magazine Features

Arrivals, Departures and Everything in Between: GOAA Soars With Speech

Aside from the necessity to function smoothly with the 511 system, the Authority's main goal for implementing the speech application was to continue to improve and expand its customer services

Speech and J2EE - A Foundation for More Creative Dialog Design

Repurposing existing data for speech is frequently a new concept for IT managers whose expectations have been shaped by the proprietary speech systems exclusively available in pre-VoiceXML days.  Speech industry standards such as VoiceXML can take full advantage of J2EE to allow designers of speech applications to more easily leverage data that already exists with protocols considered by most organizations to be standards-based. 

TTS and Personalities: Expressing True Attitude

In order for expressive TTS to be effective, the voice, script, and affective tone all must support the intent and match the customer.

VUI Review Testing - Is It Part of Your Speech Best Practices?

VRT [VUI Review Testing] leverages the VUI designer's heuristic knowledge of what has or hasn't worked in the past, based on prior usability feedback.  If VRT is skipped, there may be known issues still lurking that could have been caught through VRT.

Deployments

UT Southwestern Medical Center Routes Calls Using Speech

Looking to expand its use of speech to the outpatient billing system, UT Southwestern implemented a solution using VoiceObjects X5 Voice Application Management System in January 2006.

Editor's Letter

Why the Funny Packaging?

Forward Thinking

Mom and Pop Shops Gain a Voice

Three trends that enable IVR systems for mom and pop shops without costing an arm and a leg include prepackaged applications, free starter VoiceXML platforms, and reusable dialog components.

Human Factor

Detecting Emotion: Prevention Is Better Than Cure

I am not sure how much progress has been made in detecting all possible emotional states in users, but detecting anger can be relatively easy.

Industry View

Heard the News Today? Oh Boy!

Bringing automated speech to a vertical, like health care, is not merely transcending a doctor's illegible handwriting or obviating the need for off-shore transcription services. The opportunity lies in rendering well-understood, repetitive activities as XML-based scripts in a way that leverages an installed base of processors, applications and databases.

Q & A

Donna Fluss, Principal, DMG Consulting

Speech Technology Magazine sat down with Donna Fluss to discuss contact center speech analytics and the benefits of its use.

A View from AVIOS

Encouraging Good VUI Design

Voice Value

Credibility - Let the Truth Speak for Itself

Working in the trenches with desktop dictation users over the past decade I have heard repeatedly that there needs to be greater accountability from manufacturers, distributors and resellers to accurately represent speech recognition software.

Innovations - Speech Technology with Impact: Innovative Research in the Labs Part II - IBM Research

IBM is certainly at the forefront of what this column is about - innovation. Whether research results are near term or in development for decades, they innovate in new areas and push the envelope in existing ones.

FYI

Industry Dashboard: Datamonitor

Momentum continues to build in the speech industry. The number of publicly announced speech recognition deals grew from 15 in the January/February timeframe to reach a total of 34 deals year-to-date for 2006.