Interpreting Spoken Input

Since the VoiceXML Forum Community Bulletin Board is increasingly besieged by spammers, going forward I’m going to cross post responses I submit there on this site so that interested parties (assuming there are any ;-)) can read them.

This response relates to the use of semantic interpretation in VoiceXML applications, something I have written on before. I hope readers find the exchange below helpful.

QUESTION:

Is there a way to map a response to a certain value? For instance, if the user says “yes,” “sure,” or “yeah” I’d like to put 1 in the database? If the user says “no,” “nope,” or “nah” I’d put 0.

ANSWER:

There are a couple of option open to you if all you are using is a simple yes/no grammar.

Option 1 = use the builtin “boolean” grammar type. By specifying a field type of “boolean”, an implicit grammar is created that should cover affirmative or negative responses for whataver language is being used. A boolean field returns a JavaScript string based on what the user says (e.g., yes=’true’ or no=’false’). You can convert this to a 1 or 0 using a simple if/else construct and a predefnied variable.

`</p>

...

Do you think VoiceXML rocks?
</p>

</filled>
</field>

` Option 2 = you can use the element with a custom yes/no grammar to return a 1 or a 0. (Check your platform vendor’s documentation on this element, as there is some variation.) `</p>

...</p>

< ?xml version = "1.0"?>


<one -of>
yes F_1=1;
yeah F_1=1;
hells yeah F_1=1;
yur damn skippy F_1=1;
no F_1=0;
nope F_1=0;
no way F_1=0';
hells no F_1=0;
</one>

</field

` This has the effect of filling the field named “F_1” with the value specified in the when one of the grammar items is recognized. A few good links to get you started follow: BeVocal Cafe Voxeo Community