The Art and Business of Speech Recognition: Creating the Noble Voice [Paperback]

Automated speech recognition (ASR) applications are poised to grow at a phenomenal pace. These systems allow you to speak naturally on the phone, while a computer system both understands what you say and answers knowledgeably. We all increasingly experience such applications when we telephone airline or financial companies for information. Other industries experimenting with these systems include automotive, security, and consumer goods companies. The key to the success of these systems is the design and development of effective voice user interfaces (VUIs). This is both an art and a science that requires an understanding of language, user needs, business requirements, and digital technology. This book provides an overview of this emerging field. It explains, both for managers and developers/designers new to VUIs, what the issues, challenges, and opportunities are, and gives a clear sense of what a well-designed system requires. Using real-world examples from successful, large-scale systems, it shows how a good speech recognition system can save a company money, increase customer satisfaction, and even grow revenue.

Most people have experienced an automated speech-recognition system when calling a company. Instead of prompting callers to choose an option by entering numbers, the system asks questions and understands spoken responses. With a more advanced application, callers may feel as if they're having a conversation with another person. Not only will the system respond intelligently, its voice even has personality.

The Art and Business of Speech Recognition examines both the rapid emergence and broad potential of speech-recognition applications. By explaining the nature, design, development, and use of such applications, this book addresses two particular needs:

1. Business managers must understand the competitive advantage that speech-recognition applications provide: a more effective way to engage, serve, and retain customers over the phone.
2. Application designers must know how to meet their most critical business goal: a satisfying customer experience.

Author Blade Kotelly illuminates these needs from the perspective of an experienced, business-focused practitioner. Among the diverse applications he's worked on, perhaps his most influential design is the flight-information system developed for United Airlines, about which Julie Vallone wrote in Investor's Business Daily: "By the end of the conversation, you might want to take the voice to dinner."

If dinner is the analogy, this concise book is an ideal first course. Managers will learn the potential of speech-recognition applications to reduce costs, increase customer satisfaction, enhance the company brand, and even grow revenues. Designers, especially those just beginning to work in the voice domain, will learn user-interface design principles and techniques needed to develop and deploy successful applications. The examples in the book are real, the writing is accessible and lucid, and the solutions presented are attainable today.