Designing Effective Speech Interfaces

Intended Audience

The intended audience for this book includes

• interface designers—those responsible for designing the interface portion of a product that includes a speech component or is primarily speech-based. We assume you are new to designing speech interfaces;
• usability engineers—those responsible for ensuring that a product that includes speech or is primarily speech-based is usable. We assume you are new to speech interfaces;
• developers—programmers and technical people on a speech project who are new to speech interfaces;
• product and marketing managers—those responsible for bringing a project to fruition. Product managers will be interested in what makes a speech interface work, and marketing managers will be interested in what makes a particular project usable and competitive.

We assume that you—our intended audience—are familiar with GUI interfaces, but have had little exposure to the design and development of speech interfaces. Interface design expertise will help you understand some of the underlying principles we discuss, but is not necessary to put the book to practical use. We have included information on human factors, interface design, and usability engineering for readers new to these fields.

While we assume you have a minimal familiarity with speech technology or acoustic areas, we have included summaries to provide critical information about these subjects.