1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to interactive voice technologies and, in particular, to systems and methods for providing users with information in audible form.
2. Description of the Related Art
Information provided to users by computing devices typically is provided in a graphical form. For instance, a personal computer can be used to access a Web site that provides a user with images and/or text via a display device. In this visual context, it is known to combine graphical information provided by a variety of sources and to display the combined graphical information to the user. This enables a user to visually scan the combined graphical information and identify a topic about which the user desires to receive additional information. Once identified, the user can select the topic, such as by actuating a corresponding icon, and be provided with information related to that topic. Typically, the additional information is presented in a maximized format, i.e., at least some of the previously identified topics are no longer displayed to the user and/or the information is presented on a larger portion of the display device.
It is also desirable to provide information to users in non-graphical form, i.e., audible form. However, creating an audible analogue to the aforementioned visual context has not been adequately achieved. This is because sources of audible information typically provide grammar fragments that, when combined, cannot be interpreted by voice-rendering applications and/or, if renderable, are unnecessarily impractical. For instance, multiple grammar fragments that are received from multiple sources can be stacked (grouped together) to form a valid VoiceXML document. However, a VoiceXML document with stated grammar fragments is not properly formatted for use by a VoiceXML interpreter that typically is used to render (provide voice) corresponding to VoiceXML documents. By way of further example, if each source of audible information provides a grammar fragment that includes “If you would like to access information on ______, please say ‘_______ ’,” and an interpreter could render the stacked fragments, the user would be provided with redundant audible information, e.g., “If you would like to access information on” is repeated for each source.