Design and formulation for speech interface based on flexible shortcuts

This paper proposes a new speech user interface for command selection called "Flexible Shortcuts." With this approach, users can select any command using continuous keyword input, a voice input method that uses a series of keywords related to the command. The keywords are defined by a hierarchically structured command set, called the functional structure. Two types of interactions are designed to support user friendliness and effectiveness, namely, interaction for exploration and interaction for the resolution of ambiguity. A probabilistic formulation is also considered for this approach. An experiment is conducted to compare the proposed method with the conventional "command and control" interface in terms of efficiency and usability. Experimental results show that the proposed approach is superior to the conventional approach from both objective and subjective points of view.