To: Students in Psychology 384

From: Susan Brennan, Tony Weaver

Date: Thursday, March 19, 2009

Re: Get to know VoiceXML

As a warmup before our final group project later this semester, this week’s assignment is for you to create a very simple automated telephone dialogue. The goal is for you to play around with VoiceXML on the BeVocal Cafe web site (http://cafe.bevocal.com). Tony Weaver has presented an introduction to this simple scripting language; see today’s links on the syllabus. Our undergrad TA, Nicole Romano, can help you with any questions about BeVocal Cafe.

Part I:

1. Get yourself a login and 4-digit pin at BeVocal Cafe. For details on how to do this, refer to Tony’s handout (Helpful tips for BeVocal Cafe), available via a link on the syllabus. Log in and look around - the web site is chock full of information, ranging from simple and basic to quite advanced. Keep it simple for now. We suggest that you click on “Documentation” (one of the choices across the top of the web site) and explore the links under “Basics”.

2. Then try editing one of the scripts available as an example on the BeVocal site, or one of the ones from Tony’s presentation (see the slides as well as the “Examples” links on the syllabus). Here are your very simple goals for this part of the assignment:

• Modify some prompts or create some new ones; these will be what the computer voice says to the caller.
• Create a very simple grammar in the same VoiceXML document (don’t worry about creating separate grammar files until later). Your grammar will enable the system to listen for particular words or utterances from the caller. Play around with having your system listen for the three kinds of utterances that Tony discussed: (1) single word choices (with several word choices listed inside of square brackets, where the system expects the user to say one of them), (2) a longer utterance (in parentheses), and (3) some combination where one of the elements can be optional (using the ? notation). Again, review Tony’s slides for very simple examples of these.

Paste your edited file back onto the BeVocal site and save your changes.

3. Now for the fun step! Call up the BeVocal system, enter the pin for your dialogue. Try it out. Go back and change it if you like.

4. Write us a 1-page (or shorter) memo about how it came out. Be sure to include your pin number so we can call up your automated dialogue. Comment about what you were able to do with VoiceXML (as well as on what you’d like to be able to do that you haven’t done yet).

Part II: Optional: If you were able to do Part I without problems, try one or more of the following:

• Create a prompt that asks the caller for info, and then create a response prompt that repeats that info back to the caller within an utterance. For guidance, see Tony’s simple example that asks the caller’s name (contained in the grammar) and then greets them by name.
• Try using the SLOTS feature of VoiceXML (again, see Tony’s example). This enables you to store information into variables, based on what the caller says.
• Try having your main VoiceXML file refer to a grammar that is contained in another file.
• Try out the Vocal Scripter (under BeVocal’s “Tools and File Management”).
• See if you can figure out how to change the voice or make it place pauses within a prompt.