VoiceXML with VoxBuilder

Teaching through the use of web pages has provided an alternative way of learning for many people including those who have a disability. A severely physically disabled student may find it advantageous to study at home but if the principal teaching medium is the web and the student is unable to independently navigate the pages of the site then a barrier to learning exists. The provision of services such as audio transcription may depend on the number of students who require the service and providing 100 students per year with an audio recording of the same course does have advantage in scale compared to a situation where there are only a few students on a course.

We believe that speech recognition can give people with severe disabilities more control over their personal environments. For people with physical disabilities affecting the use of their hands, productivity is far more personal. Speech recognition can enable some people to perform daily living tasks without assistance. For others, such as the growing number of professionals afflicted with repetitive stress syndrome (RSI), speech recognition represents a means of getting or keeping employment. Thus speech recognition as a navigation aid is a key in solving the dilemma of a subset of disabled surfers.

Since the computer as we know it was first developed, man has dreamt of systems that can be operated by voice command. Science fiction has portrayed a future where users communicate with computers by voice, and generations have grown up expecting a new dawn whereby we speak and the computer speaks back. Science fact remains that the primary input devices are still keyboard and mouse, and the primary output device is the VDU. The days of communicating naturally with computers by speech, however, are not so far off. Recent technological developments have led to a new way of thinking about how we should interact with computers in general, with the development of the XML specification and the use of XML to develop applications for many types of data. In particular Voice XML and Speech Application Language Tags (SALT) are technologies that could revolutionise navigation of computer systems. Speech technology seems an ideal complement to web appliances. Advances in speech processing have already yielded for users a far more natural sounding voice reading web information. The incorporation of speech recognition can be an important source of user acceptance of any system.

Project Idea

This project could (1) review the technologies currently available for speech interaction with computers and suggest how the future of web navigation may benefit from these technologies; and (2) The student should also discusses develop a prototype of a disabled website. The voice navigatable website should obviously be aimed at disabled users. It may consist of three navigation options: point-and-click; BrowseAloud and vocal navigation or simply one.

I recommend that you start your research at the VoxPilot. The VoiceXML technology that they have is called VoxBuilder which is basically Voxpilot's Online Development Environment (ODE) for creating and deploying professional VoiceXML applications. The voxBuilder File Manager allows you to upload VoiceXML application files to the Voxpilot servers. You can then run, test and debug your application by calling your nearest access number, and optionally review your application logs. For more information on Voxpilot, visit the Voxpilot web site at http://www.voxpilot.com/.

Click on the VoxBuilder page and register. Use your home phone number for the Caller ID (last eight digits are used) and enter a 4 digit number that you are likely to remember for PIN. Call to see me if unsure about the rest. It's not difficult.