Mentioned this on the original [1] post about this mini-project

“…multimodal web & messaging only, so I understand it as….a future extension of mobile web and learning - giving people choice over how they interact and use information and for the purposes of this little project, looking at voice-text only. A multimodal browser will allow multiple types of input or output using a range of options - keyboard, touch, voice etc I will be looking at Xhtml + Voicexml (x+v) markup languages”

Have deliberately not done much with due to other more intense programming bits but thought it was about time to post something. Prior to May, had not attempted to write/code anything related to voice before, although wrote an audio stylesheet about 2 /3 years ago.

Trying to think this along the lines of:

1. Should it be a mobile web page with a basic form ? This would not appear to be what xhtml+voice forms have already been designed for (e.g. examples so far seem to be things like using a form to find something or order pizza etc), but was wondering whether you could create a basic mobile web page, with options when selected by voice input would return a web page template as a file, to the user either via SMS or the web. If you’re going to be online anyway, would using voice add any value in terms of speeding up the process, so you could edit / create mobile web pages on the go ? Hmmm, not sure, but having both a visual and voice form would make it more accessible.

2.If not a whole mobile web page, could it be a regular web page with voice annotated ‘elements’ on the page that could produce a similar result ? Would it be better than a mobile web form ? Don’t know yet until try.

3. Due to limits of connectivity / bandwidth / cost / time, would it be more useful just to provide a standalone mobile voice application that could produce a set of templates and is it possible ? Could any files or the code be generated by a form similar to the above to generate either a voice or text SMS? (As above, re using voiceSMS - from an accessibility point of view - is better to have both a text and voice option?) Also don’t know yet until try. (Will return to this in a future post).

Will not be starting with an example of a mobile-friendly web page just yet because as per [2] mobile web experimenting, haven’t done that yet - however will be bringing into this project later on.

In order to accept user input i.e. someone saying something, this is coded on a web page in a similar way to inputting text, using a form. So just as each text box would appear on a page, there can be an equivalent set of code to allow for speech. The examples provided by others would be things like - ordering food or drink, so if you were using your mobile phone and wanted to quickly order something like a milkshake (why you would be ordering one via the web, but off the top of my head…) your order would be a set of speech ‘events’.

So, am wandering around in Bournemouth, UK, its a lovely sunny day and I want a milkshake - so decide to order from [3] Shakeaway (if you are ever in Bournemouth….) so a form would include questions like

Would you like a milkshake with:
Chocolate bar
Cake
Biscuits
Cereal
etc

Would you like anything else with it?
(note - if it was Shakeaway then a mobile web form would be totally inappropriate because there are hundreds of combinations)
Strawberry
Cherry
Lime
Kiwi
Melon
etc

Dairy or alternative?
Dairy
Soya

Any extras?
No thanks
Extra icecream
bran
protein
etc

Finished?
Yes
No

Would you like to save this as a favourite?
Yes
No

All of the above could also branch out - imagine if you were standing at the counter and being asked what you wanted, with lots of choices to look at, you might need several decisions or you might have a favourite - mine is chocolate & cherry with soya - so on the form I would be saying chocolate then selecting cherry then soya, no thanks then yes to finish. However if you would like anything else (question 2) you could potentially have additional sub branches e.g. 2a being lists of chocolate bars, 2b being cake options etc etc, depending on how many flavours you wanted.

In voicexml forms, each question would be treated as its own ‘block’ so you would need to add in extra code to tell the form to go to other blocks. No idea exactly at this point how to code the cookie bit (i.e. would you like to save as a favourite, am assuming that you can save cookies on a form on mobile device in same way as pc, but haven’t looked into as yet), but it would be useful seeing as you are using a phone and want to save time being online.

What does this look like in voicexml?
Will try and post tomorrow. Am hoping that same principle of menu items would apply for this project i.e.
What kind of page do you want to create?
xhtml
RSS
php
etc

Then a branch if selected Xhtml:
What type of Xhtml?
Strict
Transitional
etc

or if selected RSS -
Is this for a podcast?
Yes
No

(If select yes, this would be telling the server that you want RSS 2.0 and automatically bring in a template with itunes, encl and other media-specific tags)

This is about as far as I have got in terms of thinking it through. There are a whole bunch of resources available and I spent (productively going round in circles) several hours trying to work out how it was possible to test anything without having access to your own voice server. I have signed up to [4] Voxeo because you can test anything you create using Skype which sounds useful. You can also enable voice if you download [5] Opera browser (Voice is not on Opera mini yet.)

Refs and sources for this post on [6] delicious with voicexml tag