Understand Speech Application Dialog Flow
This content is no longer actively maintained. It is provided as is, for anyone who may still be using these technologies, with no warranties or claims of accuracy with regard to the most recent product version or service release.
An effective dialog is the key component to a successful interaction between a voice-only application and a user.
Designing Effective Dialog Flow
A voice-only application interacts with the user entirely without visual cues. The dialog flow must be intuitive and natural enough to simulate two humans conversing. It must also provide a user with enough context and supporting information to understand the next action step at any point in the application.
Use the following list as a suggested task order when designing a dialog for a voice-only application:
- Determine the information items that the application requires from the user.
- Determine the commands that a user can speak to exit the current dialog, ask for help, or perform other tasks that are not within the scope of the current dialog.
- Model a dialog flow (which consists of one or many question and answer cycles) using Microsoft Visio, or a similar tool, to represent the branches and sequence that the application's questions and answers require.
- Determine which prompts the application will speak to the user, including those in response to commands, silence, and recognition failure.
- Determine which grammars the application will use to recognize user speech.
See Also
Other Resources
Create SALT Voice Response Application Projects
Create Web-based Voice Response Applications