Answers
to Your Questions About VoiceXML
In
this monthly column, an industry expert will answer
common questions about VoiceXML and related technologies.
Readers are encouraged to submit questions about VoiceXML,
including development, voice-user interface design,
and speech technology in general, or how VoiceXML is
being used commercially in the marketplace. If you have
a question about VoiceXML, e-mail it to speak.and.listen@voicexmlreview.org
and be sure to read future issues of VoiceXML Review
for the answer.
This
month we examine more questions from our readers.
Q: I am in the process of learning VoiceXML and I feel
a little bit overwhelmed. I have limited skills in HTML
and XML, as well as Dreamweaver. I am learning this
new language with minimum resources and no mentor to
help me. Do you have any suggestions, advice, or resources
where someone like me can gain knowledge and become
proficient in VoiceXML?
A: One approach of course is to simply start
writing code with the VoiceXML
1.0 specification at your side for reference. However,
depending on your level of programming skills and experience,
that could prove to be a rather hit and miss endeavor.
This is particularly true if you don't have a proper
understanding of the big picture. To get a bit of background
and appreciation for the language the VoiceXML Forum
has made a variety of educational resources that will
help you get started.
To
begin, I would point you to the First
Words column written by Rob Marchand and published
monthly in this e-zine. The First Words column is a
series of short articles describing various aspects
of the language based on a running example. There are
a number of annotated code examples, diagrams, etc.
each month that illustrate the concepts being introduced.
You can read previous installments of the column in
the VoiceXML
Review Archives.
Other
resources available to those interested in learning
VoiceXML include the three on-line Tutorials
published on the VoiceXML Forum's website. The Forum
has received a lot of positive feedback from individuals
who have worked their way through the tutorials since
they were published a few months ago, and I would highly
recommend them to you.
In
addition to reading tutorials, articles, the language
specification, etc., it is critical that you get some
hands on experience writing your own applications. To
do this, you will need to have access to a VoiceXML
interpreter. There are a variety of implementations
freely available that basically come in one of two flavors:
on-line studio-based tools and VoiceXML simulators running
on your PC desktop. The on-line studio-based approach
consists of a website that allows you to author your
VoiceXML application on-line, or register the URI of
a VoiceXML application you are hosting on your own web
server. You will be provided with a telephone number
you can call to execute your application. The simulator
approach typically involves a VoiceXML simulator that
you can download and run on your local PC desktop. The
simulator may actually do speech recognition and text-to-speech
synthesis using your sound card and microphone for input/output,
or it may simulate speech input/output by entering/displaying
text on the screen. A number of VoiceXML Forum member
companies provide one or both of these types of development
tools. Links to a few of the more popular tools are
listed in the FAQ's
published on the Forum's website.
You
also mentioned the lack of a mentor. In addition to
the message boards on the support sites of companies
with VoiceXML-related products, there are a few places
here and there on-line where VoiceXML application developers
and platform implementors congregate. The Yahoo "voicexml"
Group is one example that comes to mind. While traffic
is rather sporadic at times, there seems to be a number
of experts tuned in that are usually happy to provide
you with some mentoring - particularly if you happen
to be using their company's product!
Q:
I have a VoiceXML application running successfully on
my PC using my computer's sound card, speakers, and
microphone for input and output. Now I would like to
invoke my application using a telephone. Can you provide
suggestions on how I might go about doing this?
A:
Without knowing the exact details of your particular
configuration it is difficult to suggest a bulletproof
solution. You are going to have to do some more detailed
investigation to determine what your options are. It
sounds like you have downloaded one of several tools
available that implement a VoiceXML interpreter in the
context of your desktop PC. These tools are very convenient
for authoring and running VoiceXML applications without
requiring expensive telephony hardware and services.
One thing to find out is what interfaces in addition
to your PC's sound card, does the tool you are running
support? Chances are the software you are running is
hard-wired to work only with your sound card. While
there is a remote chance that you can purchase additional
telephony hardware (analog or digital interface cards,
etc.) and configure them to run with your tool, this
will involve a fair amount of telephony know-how, and
require additional telephony services (analog lines,
T1's, etc.) that you may not have readily available.
Another alternative to investigate is to determine whether
or not the tool supports VoIP-based interfaces such
as SIP/RTP. If so, you should be able to obtain a software-based
IP phone and configure that to call your application.
There are a number of IP phones freely available for
download, such as the pingtel xpressa softphone.
A
far simpler solution is to locate a company who provides
VoiceXML hosting services and setup your application
on their system. They will provide you with a phone
number that you can use to call your application. There
are a number of free online VoiceXML developer services
available for developing and running VoiceXML applications,
as mentioned in the answer to the previous question.
The downside is that you may have to "port"
your application to the hosting platform's interpreter.
For example, if the underlying speech recognizers are
different, the grammar syntax your application currently
uses may not be supported on the hosting platform. Portability
issues will become less of an issue in the future given
the VoiceXML Forum's current efforts in the area of
conformance, and the W3C's efforts defining standard
grammar formats, text-to-speech markup, and additional
specifications. These areas were left unspecified in
the original VoiceXML 1.0 specification.
The
advantage of letting somebody else host your VoiceXML
application is of course that you don't have to worry
about purchasing, implementing or maintaining a rather
complex telephony platform.
Continued...
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IEEE
Industry Standards and Technology Organization (IEEE-ISTO).
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