Universal Commandsfor Telephony-Based Spoken LanguageSystems Telephone Speech Standards Committee Common Dialog Tasks Subcommittee Introduction Many spoken language systems designed for use over the telephone incorporate universal commands. A universal command is one that is available to the caller at all times. Example universals from some currently deployed systems include "help" in order to get additional instruction relevant to the current state of the call, and "repeat" to hear the most recent prompt again. Universal commands provide the caller with consistency throughout an application. They typically provide functions a caller can fall back on any time they are having problems, increasing the ease of use of systems. If the entire industry could agree on a standard set of universal commands, available with all applications, their value would be greatly enhanced. First of all, a well-chosen set of commands will allow callers to recover from the most common problems that arise. Secondly, callers would gradually learn these commands, reducing the need to teach every caller the universal commands with every call. Finally, and most importantly, the cognitive load on the caller would be reduced - consistent use of universals across applications would reduce the amount of learning necessary with each
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