Dynamic help including available speech commands from content contained within speech grammars

• US 20070213984A1
• Filed: 03/13/2006
• Published: 09/13/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 03/13/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Ativanichayaphong, Soonthorn, Jaramillo, David, McCobb, Gerald
• Granted Patent: US 8,311,836 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/257
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/167 Audio in a user interface, e.g. using voice commands for navigating, audio feedback
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/228 of application context

Abstract

A method for providing help to voice-enabled applications, including multimodal applications, can include a step of identifying at least one speech grammar associated with a voice-enabled application. Help fields can be defined within the speech grammar. The help fields can include available speech commands for the voice enabled application. When the speech grammar is activated for use by the voice-enabled application, the available speech commands can be presented to a user of the voice-enabled application. The presented speech commands can be obtained from the help fields.

Claims

1. A method for providing help to voice-enabled applications comprising identifying, at least one speech grammar associated with a voice-enabled application;

within the speech grammar, defining help fields, said help fields comprising available speech. commands for the voice enabled application activating the speech grammar for use by the voice-enabled application; and

presenting the available speech commands to a user of the voice-enabled application wherein the presented speech commands are obtained from the help fields.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein activation state of the speech grammar dynamically changes at runtime based upon a state of the voice-enabled application, wherein the presented available speech commands dynamically changes in accordance with the activation state of the speech grammar.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein a plurality of speech grammars including the speech grammar are simultaneously activated each of the plurality of grammars having defined help fields comprising available speech commands, wherein the presenting step presents available speech commands associated with each of the active grammars.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the plurality of speech grammars include at least two different types of grammars selected from a group of grammar types consisting of a context-sensitive grammar a page-level grammar and a global grammar.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the at least two different types of grammars comprises at least three different types of grammars selected from said group.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the voice-enabled application is a multimodal application and wherein the presenting step visually presents the available speech commands to a user of the voice-enabled application.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein a window in which the available speech commands are visually presented is selectively displayed responsive to a received speech command.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the presenting) step audibly presents the available speech commands to a user of the voice-enabled application responsive to a received help-enabling speech command, and wherein a different user selectable speech command returns the user to a place of the voice-enabled application immediately before the help-enabling speech command was received.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the voice-enabled application is a multimodal application having a graphical user interface.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the help fields comprise a plurality of example utterances each corresponding to one of the available speech commands;

the presenting step further comprising;

presenting the example utterances to the user, wherein the presented example utterances are obtained from the help fields.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the grammar is an SRGS based grammar, and wherein the help fields are stored within the SRGS based grammar using SRGS meta tags.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the voice-enabled application is a multimodal application that executes within a multimodal browser.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein the voice-enabled application is written in a multimodal markup language.

14. The method of claim 12 further comprising:

establishing a help conduit between the multimodal application and the multimodal browser, wherein data payloads are conveyed through the help conduit.

15. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing a development wizard that provides developers a means to place content within the help fields.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the steps of claim 1 are performed by at least one machine in accordance with at least one computer program having a plurality of code sections that are executable by the at least one machine.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the steps of claim 1 are performed by at least one of a service agent and a computing device manipulated by the service agent the steps being performed in response to a service request.

18. A speech grammar comprising:

at least one help field implemented using at least one SRGS metatag, wherein said speech grammar is used by a voice-enabled application, that activates the speech grammar wherein the help fields contain help data that provides help to a user of the voice-enabled application for speech commands associated with the speech grammar.

19. The speech grammar of claim 18, further comprising:

at least one hell example associated with the at least one help field, said help example being presented by the voice enabled application as an example of a properly phrased one of the speech commands.

20. A system for providing help to a voice-enabled application comprising:

a grammar wizard for specifying help content associated with available speech commands of a speech grammar;

at least one grammar generated by the grammar wizard, said grammar including a plurality of words in the grammar and a plurality of help fields within which help content for the plurality of words is contained; and

a multi modal application comprising a help interface, wherein the multimodal application dynamically loads the help content within the help interface at run time when the associated grammar is dynamically activated.