Dynamically Generating a Vocal Help Prompt in a Multimodal Application

• US 20080065390A1
• Filed: 09/12/2006
• Published: 03/13/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 09/12/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nuance Communications, Inc. (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Nuance Communications, Inc. (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Li, Yan, Ativanichayaphong, Soonthorn, Jaramillo, David, Cross, Charles W.
• Granted Patent: US 8,086,463 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/270
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/453 Help systems
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 5/06 with both visual and audible presentation of the material to be studied
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/027 Concept to speech synthesisers; Generation of natural phrases from machine-based concepts generation of parameters for speech synthesis out of text G10L13/08
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/19 Grammatical context, e.g. disambiguation of the recognition hypotheses based on word sequence rules
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4938 comprising a voice browser which renders and interprets, e.g. VoiceXML

Abstract

Dynamically generating a vocal help prompt in a multimodal application that include detecting a help-triggering event for an input element of a VoiceXML dialog, where the detecting is implemented with a multimodal application operating on a multimodal device supporting multiple modes of interaction including a voice mode and one or more non-voice modes, the multimodal application is operatively coupled to a VoiceXML interpreter, and the multimodal application has no static help text. Dynamically generating a vocal help prompt in a multimodal application according to embodiments of the present invention typically also includes retrieving, by the VoiceXML interpreter from a source of help text, help text for an element of a speech recognition grammar, forming by the VoiceXML interpreter the help text into a vocal help prompt, and presenting by the multimodal application the vocal help prompt through a computer user interface to a user.

Claims

1. A method for dynamically generating a vocal help prompt in a multimodal application, the method comprising:

detecting a help-triggering event for an input element of a VoiceXML dialog, the detecting implemented with a multimodal application operating on a multimodal device supporting multiple modes of interaction including a voice mode and one or more non-voice modes, the multimodal application operatively coupled to a VoiceXML interpreter, the multimodal application having no static help text;

retrieving, by the VoiceXML interpreter from a source of help text, help text for an element of a speech recognition grammar;

forming by the VoiceXML interpreter the help text into a vocal help prompt; and

presenting by the multimodal application the vocal help prompt through a computer user interface to a user.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein retrieving help text further comprises retrieving, for use as help text, text associated with elements of the grammar, including non-terminal elements and terminal elements.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein forming the help text into a vocal help prompt further comprises concatenating help text associated with a non-terminal element of the grammar with help text associated with one or more terminal elements of the grammar.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein:

the grammar includes two or more alternative terminal elements; and

retrieving help text further comprises retrieving, for use as help text, text from a number of the alternative terminal elements, the number limited by a predefined maximum.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising iteratively carrying out the steps of the method upon occurrence of additional help-triggering events, generating multiple levels of help.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein:

the grammar includes words that can be recognized by the VoiceXML interpreter; and

the source of help text further comprises the words of the grammar.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein:

the speech recognition grammar was previously dynamically generated using text stored in a computer database; and

the source of help text further comprises additional text in the computer database from which the speech recognition grammar was generated.

8. Apparatus for dynamically generating a vocal help prompt in a multimodal application, the apparatus comprising a computer processor and a computer memory operatively coupled to the computer processor, the computer memory having disposed within it computer program instructions capable of:

detecting a help-triggering event for an input element of a VoiceXML dialog, the detecting implemented with a multimodal application operating on a multimodal device supporting multiple modes of interaction including a voice mode and one or more non-voice modes, the multimodal application operatively coupled to a VoiceXML interpreter, the multimodal application having no static help text;

retrieving, by the VoiceXML interpreter from a source of help text, help text for an element of a speech recognition grammar;

forming by the VoiceXML interpreter the help text into a vocal help prompt; and

presenting by the multimodal application the vocal help prompt through a computer user interface to a user.

9. The apparatus of claim 8 wherein retrieving help text further comprises retrieving, for use as help text, text associated with elements of the grammar, including non-terminal elements and terminal elements.

10. The apparatus of claim 8 wherein forming the help text into a vocal help prompt further comprises concatenating help text associated with a non-terminal element of the grammar with help text associated with one or more terminal elements of the grammar.

11. The apparatus of claim 8 wherein:

the grammar includes two or more alternative terminal elements; and

retrieving help text further comprises retrieving, for use as help text, text from a number of the alternative terminal elements, the number limited by a predefined maximum.

12. The apparatus of claim 8 further comprising iteratively carrying out the steps of the method upon occurrence of additional help-triggering events, generating multiple levels of help.

13. The apparatus of claim 8 wherein:

the grammar includes words that can be recognized by the VoiceXML interpreter; and

the source of help text further comprises the words of the grammar.

14. The apparatus of claim 8 wherein:

the speech recognition grammar was previously dynamically generated using text stored in a computer database; and

the source of help text further comprises additional text in the computer database from which the speech recognition grammar was generated.

15. A computer program product for dynamically generating a vocal help prompt in a multimodal application, the computer program product disposed upon a signal bearing medium, the computer program product comprising computer program instructions capable of:

detecting a help-triggering event for an input element of a VoiceXML dialog, the detecting implemented with a multimodal application operating on a multimodal device supporting multiple modes of interaction including a voice mode and one or more non-voice modes, the multimodal application operatively coupled to a VoiceXML interpreter, the multimodal application having no static help text;

retrieving, by the VoiceXML interpreter from a source of help text, help text for an element of a speech recognition grammar;

forming by the VoiceXML interpreter the help text into a vocal help prompt; and

presenting by the multimodal application the vocal help prompt through a computer user interface to a user.

16. The computer program product of claim 15 wherein the signal bearing medium comprises a recordable medium.

17. The computer program product of claim 15 wherein the signal bearing medium comprises a transmission medium.

18. The computer program product of claim 15 wherein retrieving help text further comprises retrieving, for use as help text, text associated with elements of the grammar, including non-terminal elements and terminal elements.

19. The computer program product of claim 15 wherein forming the help text into a vocal help prompt further comprises concatenating help text associated with a non-terminal element of the grammar with help text associated with one or more terminal elements of the grammar.

20. The computer program product of claim 15 further comprising iteratively carrying out the steps of the method upon occurrence of additional help-triggering events, generating multiple levels of help.