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<Paper uid="N04-4019">
  <Title>Speech Graffiti vs. Natural Language: Assessing the User Experience</Title>
  <Section position="2" start_page="0" end_page="0" type="intro">
    <SectionTitle>
1 Introduction
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> Many problems still exist in the design of speech-based interfaces. Noisy environments and linguistic variability make interpretation of already uncertain input even more difficult, resulting in errors that must be handled effectively. What if many of these issues could be reduced by asking users to interact with speech-based systems in a structured way? Would they learn the interaction protocol? Would they prefer a more efficient yet structured interaction to one that was more natural, but perhaps less efficient? One approach to structuring interaction is through directed-dialog systems. These generally work well for novice users, but they can be too meandering for expert users who know exactly what they want from the system. Specialized command-and-control languages give more power to the user, but they can be difficult for novices and require learning a new language for each new application encountered.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> Speech Graffiti is a structured interaction protocol that is designed to be universal. Common input structures, output patterns and keywords are used for all Speech Graffiti applications, and once users are familiar with these for any single application, they can navigate their way through any other Speech Graffiti application.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> Fig. 1 shows a sample Speech Graffiti dialog</Paragraph>
    <Section position="1" start_page="0" end_page="0" type="sub_section">
      <SectionTitle>
User interactions with Speech Graffiti (independent
</SectionTitle>
      <Paragraph position="0"> of other speech interfaces) have previously been assessed in Rosenfeld et al. (2000). Here we consider a head-to-head comparison: given the chance to interact with both types of interfaces, which would people choose? What differences might be observed in performance or user satisfaction?</Paragraph>
    </Section>
    <Section position="2" start_page="0" end_page="0" type="sub_section">
      <SectionTitle>
1.1 Related work
</SectionTitle>
      <Paragraph position="0"> Although much research has been conducted on the design of natural language spoken dialog systems, far less research has been done on more standardized speech interfaces. Several studies have previously found that users are able to interact successfully using constrained or subset languages (e.g. Guindon &amp; Shuldberg, 1987; Ringle &amp; Halstead-Nussloch, 1989; Sidner &amp; Forlines, 2002). As far as we know, no studies have been done comparing constrained, &amp;quot;universal&amp;quot; languages and natural language interfaces directly as we have done in this study. General information about the Speech Graffiti project and its motivation can be found in Rosenfeld et al. (2001).</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="1"> User: Theater is the Manor. Title is Tuck Everlasting.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="2"> System: THE CINEMAGIC MANOR THEATRE, TUCK EVERLASTING.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="3"> Options.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="4"> SHOW TIME, DAY, GENRE, {...}.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="5"> What are the show times?</Paragraph>
    </Section>
  </Section>
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