Philosophy

No matter how immersed they become in the minutiae, designers of over-the-phone speech-recognition systems must never lose sight of one, over-arching goal: These systems are made to help people do what they have to do. It doesn't matter if it's mundane (home banking) or flashy (entertainment/infotainment like a voice-portal), the goal is the same: to help people accomplish their tasks swiftly, easily, and unobtrusively.

Every designer should be guided by a philosophy. Having a philosophy gives a designer both a starting position and a compass to point the way ”a compass to navigate through the plethora of decisions that must be made along the way. At the very least, having a philosophy enables a designer to answer the " Why? " question at each point in the design process. Why am I writing this question? Why am I using a particular word here in a particular context? Why will this design solve the problem better than another design?

When I was about four years old, my mom taught me that if I was confused at all about whether or not to do something, I could simply think about the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Her point was to make sure that I considered other people's perspectives before I did something that might affect them. I've applied this rule both consciously and subconsciously throughout my life in a variety of situations.

When I was a teenager, I became driven by the idea that I should design things ”at that point I wasn't sure just what things ”that improved people's lives. Eventually, this winding road led me to become a speech-recognition system designer. And when I first approached problems and thought about how to develop the best solutions, I wandered back to the Golden Rule as a way to solve design problems on a variety of levels. I've found that this rule is especially applicable in the design of speech-recognition systems.

When designing a system, designers need to put themselves mentally in the place of the people calling into the system. If we can understand what it's like to be those people in their varying moods ”happy, angry , confused, rushed, or impatient ”we can design a system to accommodate them. While empathizing is not always easy to do, we can often satisfy callers by understanding who they are and why they're calling, and then decide on the most appropriate way to handle different callers and different situations. Some situations are easy to design for, while others present problems that require more work to solve. In both cases knowledge of psychology will aid the designer more than knowledge of technology alone.



The Art and Business of Speech Recognition(c) Creating the Noble Voice
The Art and Business of Speech Recognition: Creating the Noble Voice
ISBN: 0321154924
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 105
Authors: Blade Kotelly

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