Butler: A universal speech interface for mobile environments

Abstract

Speech interfaces are about to be integrated in consumer appliances and embedded systems and are expected to be used by mobile users in ubiquitous computing environments. This paper discusses some major usability and HCI related problems that may be introduced by this development. It is argued that a human-centered approach should be employed when designing and developing speech interfaces for mobile environments. Further, the Butler, a generic spoken dialogue system developed according to the human-centered approach is described. The Butler features a dynamic multi-domain approach. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2004.