Speech Technology - June 2008 - (Page 28) VUI DESIGN but the site’s creator. As the Web evolved, so did the demand for better content and site design. Industries like graphic design and Web software development answered the call. Lackluster sites remained, but most people chose to go to the pros. The same can be said for voice user interface (VUI) design. While designed using different code than the Web, and harnessing the flow of dialogue rather than visual information, VUI design still works under the same mandates laid down by the Internet generation. Should a VUI project be left in the hands of novices, or should an interactive voice response (IVR) system be designed by the pros? That is left to a business to decide, but both sides of the argument the user experience will be satisfying or frustrating, or even whether the customer will remain one.” Statements like that are not rare within the industry, but what remains to be seen is whether members of a regular IT team can learn to design an IVR as successfully as a professional. Will they try feverishly to learn the skills needed and create something usable? Or will their IVR end up just like those early Web pages, full of bells and whistles, neither of which takes the user anywhere? Susan Hura, founder and principal at SpeechUsability, says the chances of success in DIY design are less than average. “People can try to do it themselves, but I think the chances of the average flows, Eduardo Olvera, senior user interface designer at Nuance Communications, thinks it’s always smart for a company to put its best foot forward. For him, that means bringing in the big guns to do some of the work. “If a company is deploying [an IVR] as the first application they’ve done, for me it’s really important to engage someone who has some experience,” Olvera states. “They will know what to expect, and chances are most people won’t know what to expect. Really deploying an IVR and introducing it to consumers is straightforward at this point, but if you’re introducing speech, you need to know or have someone in your team who knows how to introduce that to customers.” While some VUI consultants push for a stronger awareness of their field (primarily that there is much more to designing an IVR than meets the eye), some companies think the IVR could use some democratization. refuse to go down without a fight. While some VUI consultants push for a stronger awareness of their field (primarily that there is much more to designing an IVR than meets the eye), some companies think the IVR could use some democratization. The argument for speech may seem nearly won, but subindustries within the area haven’t quite come to a conclusion. VUI design, by which an organization creates the dialogue, flow, and responses used in an IVR powered by automatic speech recognition (ASR), is still a hotly contested area. And for good reason; both sides of the argument say VUI design can determine whether an IVR fails or succeeds. In the 2004 book Voice User Interface Design, authors Michael Cohen, James P. Giangola, and Jennifer Balogh state that “The VUI is perhaps the most critical factor in the success of any ASR system, determining whether person, with no training in speech or human factors and no understanding of how people use conversation, are pretty small,” Hura states. “There’s a whole technical side of things. I can’t imagine writing a grammar with no knowledge of speech acoustics. Many of these things require some background; if it works, it’s luck.” First Impressions Matter Though other channels, such as the Internet, allow the end user to establish contact with a company, the phone remains the most popular point of contact for consumers looking to solve a problem. While they may have tapped a company’s Web site for background information, they come to the call center with unresolved questions or tricky situations. Therefore, the consumer’s first interaction with a company is typically its IVR. So when designing dialogue This, however, is an ideal. While companies may throw money at marketing initiatives, the IVR is not always viewed as a means to drive customer loyalty or retention. Therefore, the IVR can sometimes be an afterthought, something simply assigned to the same developers who crafted the system, but who may not have experience with VUI design. Until recently, VUI designers or IVR developers had no tools with which they could graphically express their ideas. Then came products like Voxeo’s Designer and Microsoft Speech Server, both of which allow companies to build an IVR dialogue flow using a graphical interface. Users can literally drop a transfer to operator command within a call tree being constructed on the computer screen. While the products help democratize the space, Voxeo and Microsoft have different views as to how their 28 | Speech Technology JUNE 2008 www.speechtechmag.com http://www.speechtechmag.com
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