*Even economically successful automatic speech dialog systems often enough gain bad reputation in public opinion. Although from a technical point of view this judgment may seem unjustified because of the technical maturing process in recent years. However, this book is based on the fact that it is the usersâEUR(TM) judgments that is the final measure regarding usability and acceptance of any speech dialog system.

It is the aim of this book to share views from experts from industry and academia who look a step ahead, providing their strategies and approaches for the future of user-friendly speech dialog systems.

Contributions spotlight issues such as automatic user classification, uncovering usersâEUR(TM) interaction schemes, speech interaction as part of multimodal user interfaces, relation of subjective and objective data, and the role of voice and style in designing a brand specific acoustic appearance

• Zusammenfassung

Many technical issues like speech recognition and signal processing have to be addressed for the design of speech communication systems. However, before designing a speech application starts, 3 key questions that have to be answered: who will use it, why and how often? Only if the designer is clear about these questions, he is able to provide a maximum of target group orientation.

This book gives focuses on these high-level questions and gives a criteria when and how to design speech systems. After an introduction, the state of the art in modern voice user interfaces is displayed. The following parts of the book evolve criteria for designing and evaluating successful voice user interfaces. In the last chapter, outlines and trends of this fast growing area are displayed.

Inhalt
Who, Why and How Often? Key Elements for the Design of a Successful Speech Application Taking Account of the Target Groups.- Experiences of Designing a Speech User Interface for a Smart Home Environment.- Automatic User Classification for Speech Dialog Systems.- A new Testbed for Semi-Automatic Usability Evaluation and Optimization of Spoken Dialogue Systems.- Stylus Meets Voice a Practitioner's View on Multimodal Input and Output.- More Than Words: Designing Multimodal Systems.- Sound Branding and Corporate Voice Strategic Brand Management Using Sound.- Speak to the Target Audience Some Observations and Notes on the Pragmatics of Spoken Dialog Systems.