Proceedings Article•
Comparative evaluation of a natural language dialog based system and a menu driven system for information access: a case study
12 Apr 2000-pp 1590-1600
TL;DR: The evaluation of a natural language dialog based navigation system (HappyAssistant) that helps users access e-commerce sites to find relevant information about products and services shows that users prefer the natural language enabled navigation two to one over the menu driven navigation.
Abstract: This paper describes the evaluation of a natural language dialog based navigation system (HappyAssistant) that helps users access e-commerce sites to find relevant information about products and services. The prototype system leverages technologies in natural language processing and human computer interaction to create a faster and more intuitive way of interacting with websites, especially for the less experienced users. The result of a comparative study shows that users prefer the natural language enabled navigation two to one over the menu driven navigation. In addition, the study confirmed the efficiency of using natural language dialog in terms of the number of clicks and the amount of time required to obtain the relevant information. In the case study, comparing to the menu driven system, the average number of clicks used in the natural language system was reduced by 63.2% and the average time was reduced by 33.3%.
Citations
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Patent•
11 Jan 2011TL;DR: In this article, an intelligent automated assistant system engages with the user in an integrated, conversational manner using natural language dialog, and invokes external services when appropriate to obtain information or perform various actions.
Abstract: An intelligent automated assistant system engages with the user in an integrated, conversational manner using natural language dialog, and invokes external services when appropriate to obtain information or perform various actions. The system can be implemented using any of a number of different platforms, such as the web, email, smartphone, and the like, or any combination thereof. In one embodiment, the system is based on sets of interrelated domains and tasks, and employs additional functionally powered by external services with which the system can interact.
1,462 citations
Patent•
28 Sep 2012TL;DR: In this article, a virtual assistant uses context information to supplement natural language or gestural input from a user, which helps to clarify the user's intent and reduce the number of candidate interpretations of user's input, and reduces the need for the user to provide excessive clarification input.
Abstract: A virtual assistant uses context information to supplement natural language or gestural input from a user. Context helps to clarify the user's intent and to reduce the number of candidate interpretations of the user's input, and reduces the need for the user to provide excessive clarification input. Context can include any available information that is usable by the assistant to supplement explicit user input to constrain an information-processing problem and/or to personalize results. Context can be used to constrain solutions during various phases of processing, including, for example, speech recognition, natural language processing, task flow processing, and dialog generation.
593 citations
Patent•
08 Sep 2006TL;DR: In this paper, a method for building an automated assistant includes interfacing a service-oriented architecture that includes a plurality of remote services to an active ontology, where the active ontologies includes at least one active processing element that models a domain.
Abstract: A method and apparatus are provided for building an intelligent automated assistant. Embodiments of the present invention rely on the concept of “active ontologies” (e.g., execution environments constructed in an ontology-like manner) to build and run applications for use by intelligent automated assistants. In one specific embodiment, a method for building an automated assistant includes interfacing a service-oriented architecture that includes a plurality of remote services to an active ontology, where the active ontology includes at least one active processing element that models a domain. At least one of the remote services is then registered for use in the domain.
389 citations
Patent•
05 Jun 2009TL;DR: In this paper, techniques and systems for implementing contextual voice commands are described and a physical input that relates the selected data item to an operation in a second context is received, and the operation is performed on the input data item in the second context.
Abstract: Among other things, techniques and systems are disclosed for implementing contextual voice commands. On a device, a data item in a first context is displayed. On the device, a physical input selecting the displayed data item in the first context is received. On the device, a voice input that relates the selected data item to an operation in a second context is received. The operation is performed on the selected data item in the second context.
385 citations
Patent•
24 May 2012TL;DR: In this paper, an electronic device may capture a voice command from a user and store contextual information about the state of the electronic device when the voice command is received, such as a desktop computer or a remote server.
Abstract: An electronic device may capture a voice command from a user. The electronic device may store contextual information about the state of the electronic device when the voice command is received. The electronic device may transmit the voice command and the contextual information to computing equipment such as a desktop computer or a remote server. The computing equipment may perform a speech recognition operation on the voice command and may process the contextual information. The computing equipment may respond to the voice command. The computing equipment may also transmit information to the electronic device that allows the electronic device to respond to the voice command.
385 citations
References
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Journal Article•
TL;DR: XML is an extremely simple dialect of SGML which is completely described in this document, to enable generic SGML to be served, received, and processed on the Web in the way that is now possible with HTML.
Abstract: Extensible Markup Language (XML) is an extremely simple dialect of SGML which is completely described in this document. The goal is to enable generic SGML to be served, received, and processed on the Web in the way that is now possible with HTML. For this reason, XML has been designed for ease of implementation, and for interoperability with both SGML and HTML. Note on status of this document: This is even more of a moving target than the typical W3C working draft. Several important decisions on the details of XML are still outstanding members of the W3C SGML Working Group will recognize these areas of particular volatility in the spec, but those who are not intimately familiar with the deliberative process should be careful to avoid actions based on the content of this document, until the notice you are now reading has been removed.
5,749 citations
PARC1
TL;DR: A model that assumes that users make a sequence of decisions to proceed to another page, continuing as long as the value of the current page exceeds some threshold, yields the probability distribution for the number of pages that a user visits within a given Web site.
Abstract: One of the most common modes of accessing information in the World Wide Web is surfing from one document to another along hyperlinks. Several large empirical studies have revealed common patterns of surfing behavior. A model that assumes that users make a sequence of decisions to proceed to another page, continuing as long as the value of the current page exceeds some threshold, yields the probability distribution for the number of pages that a user visits within a given Web site. This model was verified by comparing its predictions with detailed measurements of surfing patterns. The model also explains the observed Zipf-like distributions in page hits observed at Web sites.
772 citations
Posted Content•
TL;DR: Natural language interfaces to databases (NLIDBs) as discussed by the authors have been studied extensively in the field of natural language processing and have attracted much attention in the last few decades, especially for query languages, form-based interfaces and graphical interfaces.
Abstract: This paper is an introduction to natural language interfaces to databases (NLIDBs). A brief overview of the history of NLIDBs is first given. Some advantages and disadvantages of NLIDBs are then discussed, comparing NLIDBs to formal query languages, form-based interfaces, and graphical interfaces. An introduction to some of the linguistic problems NLIDBs have to confront follows, for the benefit of readers less familiar with computational linguistics. The discussion then moves on to NLIDB architectures, portability issues, restricted natural language input systems (including menu-based NLIDBs), and NLIDBs with reasoning capabilities. Some less explored areas of NLIDB research are then presented, namely database updates, meta-knowledge questions, temporal questions, and multi-modal NLIDBs. The paper ends with reflections on the current state of the art.
694 citations
TL;DR: This paper is an introduction to natural language interfaces to databases (NLIDBS) and some less explored areas of NLIDB research are presented, namely database updates, meta-knowledge questions, temporal questions, and multi-modal NLIDBS.
Abstract: This paper is an introduction to natural language interfaces to databases (NLIDBS). A brief overview of the history of NLIDBS is first given. Some advantages and disadvantages of NLIDBS are then discussed, comparing NLIDBS to formal query languages, form-based interfaces, and graphical interfaces. An introduction to some of the linguistic problems NLIDBS have to confront follows, for the benefit of readers less familiar with computational linguistics. The discussion then moves on to NLIDB architectures, portability issues, restricted natural language input systems (including menu-based NLIDBS), and NLIDBS with reasoning capabilities. Some less explored areas of NLIDB research are then presented, namely database updates, meta-knowledge questions, temporal questions, and multi-modal NLIDBS. The paper ends with reflections on the current state of the art.
679 citations
"Comparative evaluation of a natural..." refers background in this paper
...…many areas, such as for call-center/routing application (Carpenter & Chu-Carroll, 1998; Chu-Carroll & Carpenter, 1998), email routing (Walker & Fromer & Narayanan, 1998), information retrieval and database access (Androutsopoulos & Ritchie, 1995), and for telephony banking (Zadrozny et al, 1998)....
[...]
AT&T1
TL;DR: A novel method by which a dialogue agent can learn to choose an optimal dialogue strategy is described, based on a combination of learning algorithms and empirical evaluation techniques.
Abstract: This paper describes a novel method by which a dialogue agent can learn to choose an optimal dialogue strategy. While it is widely agreed that dialogue strategies should be formulated in terms of communicative intentions, there has been little work on automatically optimizing an agent's choices when there are multiple ways to realize a communicative intention. Our method is based on a combination of learning algorithms and empirical evaluation techniques. The learning component of our method is based on algorithms for reinforcement learning, such as dynamic programming and Q-learning. The empirical component uses the PARADISE evaluation framework (Walker et al., 1997) to identify the important performance factors and to provide the performance function needed by the learning algorithm. We illustrate our method with a dialogue agent named ELVIS (EmaiL Voice Interactive System), that supports access to email over the phone. We show how ELVIS can learn to choose among alternate strategies for agent initiative, for reading messages, and for summarizing email folders.
138 citations
"Comparative evaluation of a natural..." refers methods in this paper
...…been used in many areas, such as for call-center/routing application (Carpenter & Chu-Carroll, 1998; Chu-Carroll & Carpenter, 1998), email routing (Walker & Fromer & Narayanan, 1998), information retrieval and database access (Androutsopoulos & Ritchie, 1995), and for telephony banking (Zadrozny…...
[...]