Speech-enabled interfaces for travel information systems

Zhao, B, 2006. Speech-enabled interfaces for travel information systems. PhD, Nottingham Trent University.

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Abstract

This thesis is concerned with the development of a robust and efficient speech-enabled query interface for the travel information system. The approach taken is separated into three distinct processes: i) development of a directed-dialogue speech-enabled interface for a medium grammar based bus travel information system. This interface directs the user through a sequence of questions and answers to get the enquired result; ii) development of a multimodal interface that employs a mixed-initiative grammar to overcome the usability problems identified in the medium grammar directed-dialogue system. This interface allows the system to process a more natural language style of input rather than directing the user through a rigid sequence of questions and answers; iii) development of a directed-dialogue speech-enabled interface for an equivalent large grammar based bus travel information system that uses a novel method for real-time grammar segmentation and recognition.

This thesis firstly presents the dialogue design and usability evaluation of a directed-dialogue speech-enabled query interface for a bus travel information system. The evaluation, based on a usability-engineering paradigm, analyses four human factors of the user interface: effectiveness, efficiency, user satisfaction and learnability. The initial interface design contributes a baseline specification for the construction of a speech-enabled interface and a usability test method for other speech application developers. This evaluation also highlights the usability issues associated with the use of directed-dialogue and speech-only interfaces.

A mixed-initiative dialogue combined with a multimodal interface is then presented that successfully addresses all of the usability issues identified in the directed-dialogue interface. The good usability results reported for this improved interface show that the use of a mixed-initiative dialogue combined with a multimodal interface is an effective method for building a speech-enabled phone-based HCI system.

Finally, this thesis introduces a novel last-word recognition based grammar segmentation method that is used to handle the large grammar issues associated with producing a real-time bus travel application. Large grammars tend to produce relatively slow recognition interfaces and this work shows how this limitation can be successfully addressed. This investigation therefore contributes a method for designing real-time speech-enabled interfaces that need to use very large grammars.

Item Type:	Thesis
Description:	This research programme was carried out in collaboration with Nottingham City Transport.
Creators:	Zhao, B.
Date:	2006
ISBN:	9781369314724
Identifiers:	Number Type PQ10183206 Other
Rights:	The copy of this thesis has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material, and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement The work described in this thesis is the author's own unless stated otherwise, as far as he is aware original.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Science and Technology
Record created by:	Linda Sullivan
Date Added:	22 Sep 2020 07:02
Last Modified:	03 Aug 2023 09:44
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/40858

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