Automated Voice Interface Prompt Generation from Corpus Data

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Solution Overview

Problem

Current voice user interface (VUI) systems for call routing and similar applications require significant time and expense to manually craft dialog prompts and grammars, leading to high development costs and long time-to-market, as well as inefficiencies in reusing prompts across different applications.

Innovation Solution

Automatically generating speech dialog prompts from an annotated transcription corpus, using data archetypes and keyword extraction to create confirmation, back-off, and disambiguation prompts, reducing the need for manual grammar writing and enabling more accurate and reusable prompts.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Measurement precision

If manual crafting of dialog prompts and grammars is used, then accuracy and precision of voice user interface is improved, but development time and cost increase significantly

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveaccuracy of dialog promptsVSAvoiddevelopment time
Core Design Contradiction:
Measurement precisionVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The system automatically generates dialog prompts and grammars by processing existing training corpus data, allowing the system to serve itself rather than requiring manual crafting. The automated system extracts patterns from training data and generates appropriate prompts, reducing development time while maintaining quality through data-driven generation rather than manual creation

Inventive Principle:
Principle #25Self-service

Solution Approach 2:

The patent replaces the mechanical process of manual prompt crafting with an automated computational system. Instead of humans manually creating prompts, the system uses algorithms to process training data and generate prompts automatically, substituting manual mechanical work with automated computational processes

Inventive Principle:
Principle #28Mechanics substitution (Replace mechanical system)

2Measurement precision

If manual crafting of dialog prompts is used, then precision of user interaction is improved, but development cost increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveprecision of user interactionVSAvoiddevelopment cost
Core Design Contradiction:
Measurement precisionVSEase of manufacture

Solution Approach 1:

The system automatically generates dialog prompts by processing training corpus data, eliminating the need for manual crafting. The automated system extracts patterns from existing data and generates appropriate prompts, reducing development costs while maintaining interaction precision through data-driven generation

Inventive Principle:
Principle #25Self-service

Solution Approach 2:

The patent changes the parameters of prompt generation from manual creation to automated data-driven generation. By transforming the generation process into a computational task that processes training data, the system reduces costs while maintaining quality through systematic extraction of interaction patterns from existing corpus

Inventive Principle:
Principle #35Parameter changes

3Measurement precision

If hand-crafted prompts are used, then accuracy for specific applications is improved, but reusability across applications decreases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveaccuracy for specific applicationVSAvoidreusability across applications
Core Design Contradiction:
Measurement precisionVSAdaptability or versatility

Solution Approach 1:

The system generates prompts that are applicable across multiple applications by extracting universal patterns from training corpus data. The automated generation process creates prompts that can be reused across different applications, eliminating the need for application-specific manual crafting while maintaining accuracy through data-driven patterns

Inventive Principle:
Principle #6Universality (Multi-functionality)

Solution Approach 2:

The patent uses copying by extracting patterns from training data and generating prompts that replicate successful interaction patterns. This allows prompts to be copied and reused across applications, maintaining effectiveness without requiring manual recreation for each specific application

Inventive Principle:
Principle #26Copying

Data Source

PatentUS8165887B2Data-driven voice user interface
Publication Date: 2012.04.24 MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING LLC
  • US8165887B2 patent drawing
  • US8165887B2 patent drawing
  • US8165887B2 patent drawing

AI summary

A method for developing a voice user interface for a statistical semantic system is described. A set of semantic meanings is defined that reflect semantic classification of a user input dialog. Then, a set of speech dialog prompts is automatically developed from an annotated transcription corpus for directing user inputs to corresponding final semantic meanings. The statistical semantic system may be a call routing application where the semantic meanings are call routing destinations.