Abstract
Speech applications are typically designed to be used without any instructions or manuals. More complex applications commonly come with web-based or printed manuals. An alternative approach, software tutoring, has been studied in the context of graphical user interfaces. In software tutoring, a software component guides users while they work with an application new to them. To evaluate the viability of software tutoring in speech-based applications a two-condition between-participants experiment (N = 18) was conducted. Participants learned to use a speech-based e-mail reading application and performed several tasks with it. In the first condition the e-mail application included an embedded tutoring component that guided the participants on using the application. In the second condition, a web manual was used. All interactions with the systems were recorded and annotated. Participants also filled in questionnaires that reported their attitudes towards the guidance they received and towards the e-mail reading application. The speech-based tutor performed equally well with web-based manual with no significant differences between the conditions on how well the participants managed to accomplish the tasks with the e-mail application or in participants’ attitudes towards the application or the guidance. In addition, during the learning period the participants in the tutored condition had significantly fewer problems with the speech interface.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ames, A.L. (2001). Just what they need, just when they need it: an introduction to embedded assistance. In Proceedings of The 19th Annual International Conference on Computer Documentation, New York, NY: ACM Press, pp. 111–115.
Carroll, J.M. and Rosson, M.B. (1987). Paradox of the Active User. In J.M. Carroll (Ed.), Interfacing Thought: Cognitive Aspects of Human-Computer Interaction. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Esteban, J. (1996). AppleGuide. Interactions, 3(3):36–37.
Fischer, G., Lemke, A.C. and Mastaglio, T. (1990). Using critics to empower users. The SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI90 Proceedings. Seattle, WA: ACM Press, pp. 337–347.
Fry, J., Ginzton, M., Peters, S., Clark, B. and Pon-Barry, H. (2001). Automated tutoring dialogues for training in shipboard damage control. In Proceedings of 2nd SigDial Workshop on Discourse and Dialogue. Aalborg, Denmark: ACL.
García, F. (2000). CACTUS: Automated tutorial course generation for software applications. Intelligent User Interfaces 2000. IUI’ 2000 Proceedings. New York: ACM Press, pp. 113–120.
Hakulinen, J.S., Turunen, M., Salonen, E.-P. and Räihä, K.-J. (2004). Tutor design for speech-based interfaces. Designing Interactive Systems. In DIS2004 Proceedings. Cambridge, MA: ACM Press, To Appear.
Hassenzahl, M., Platz, A., Burmester, M. and Lehner, K. (2000). Hedonic and ergonomic quality aspects determine a software’s appeal. The SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI2000 Proceedings. Hague, The Netherlands: ACM Press, pp. 201–208.
Heisterkamp, P. (2003). Do not attempt to light with match!: Some thoughts on progress and research goals in spoken dialog systems. In Eurospeech 2003 Proceedings. Geneva, Switzerland: ISCA, pp. 2897–2900.
Kamm, C., Litman, D. and Walker, M.A. (1998). From novice to expert: The effect of tutorials on user expertise with spoken dialogue systems. International Conference on Spoken Language Processing, ICSLP98 Proceedings. Sydney, Australia: ASSTA, pp. 1211–1214.
Nakatami, L.H., Egan, D.E., Ruedisueli, L.W., Hawley, P.M. and Lewart, D.K. (1986). TNT: A talking tutor ‘N’ trainer for teaching the use of interactive computer systems. SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. CHI’86 Proceedings. Boston, MA: ACM Press, pp. 29–34.
Rosé, C.P., Litman. D., Bhembe, D., Forbes, K., Silliman, S. Srivastava, R. and VanLehn, K. (2003). A comparison of tutor and student behavior in speech versus text based tutoring. The HLT-NAACL Workshop on Building Educational Applications Using Natural Language Processing Proceedings. Edmonton, Canada.
Salonen and Helin (2004). Personal communication.
Suhm, B. (2003). Towards Best Practices for Speech User Interface Design, Eurospeech 2003 Proceedings. Geneva, Switzerland: ISCA, pp. 2217–2220.
Turunen, M. and Hakulinen, J. (2000). Mailman—a Multilingual Speech-only E-mail Client based on an Adaptive Speech Application Framework. Workshop on Multi-Lingual Speech Communication, MSC 2000 Proceedings. Kyoto, Japan, pp. 7–12.
Weinschenk, S. and Barker, D.T. (2000). Designing Effective Speech Interfaces. John Wiley and Sons, inc.
Yankelovich, N. (1996). How do users know what to say? Interactions, 3(6):32–43.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hakulinen, J., Turunen, M. & Räihä, KJ. Evaluation of Software Tutoring for a Speech Interface. Int J Speech Technol 8, 283–293 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10772-006-7216-1
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10772-006-7216-1