Speech-Enabled Information Systems: The Next Frontier
Alexander Hars · Journal of the Association for Information Systems · 2001
Speech technologies are coming of age. They are applied in an increasing number of mobile, call-center, home and office settings. They challenge the established Graphical User Interface metaphor and promise to fundamentally alter the way humans conceptualize and interact with computers. This leads to new requirements for the development of information systems. It also provides new research issues and opportunities for the academic community. This tutorial will provide an overview of natural language processing technologies, including speech recognition and generation, conversational interfaces, interactive voice response systems, voice user interfaces, translation, and standards including VoiceXML. The tutorial will provide an assessment of these technologies as well as live and recorded demonstrations. In addition, business applications of natural language technologies will be discussed. The third section of the tutorial will focus on business- and research issues of speech enabled applications. This includes issues of user-interface design, speech development life-cycles and of implications for process reengineering. ather than focusing on the technical details of speech technologies, the purpose of this tutorial is to highlight the business and IS research issues that arise from speech-enabled information systems.