5
EXPLOIT TECHNICAL INNOVATION
Speech Technology and UI Design
ŸA long
history …
–American
Express (Network World 1990)
¾Only 3 out of 3,000
callers spoke dollar amounts as required by service
¾30 sec explanation of
rounding amount reduced to 2 sec
¾Now Amex trials all new
voice processing technologies before deploying them
–AT&T
Voice Response Operator Service (1990s)
»Iterative
user testing of prompt designs lowered transaction times by half a second, working
out to savings of millions of dollars for AT&T and customers
Design of prompts – and other dialog elements –
can many times results in enormous improvements in success rates, eclipsing
improvements from tuning grammars and algorithms.
Customers respond positively to ASR ... but ...
they expect it to be accurate, efficient, and satisfying