Method and apparatus for automatically building conversational systems
View Patent ↗A system and method provides a natural language interface to world-wide web content. Either in advance or dynamically, webpage content is parsed using a parsing algorithm. A person using a telephone interface can provide speech information, which is converted to text and used to automatically fill in input fields on a webpage form. The form is then submitted to a database search and a response is generated. Information contained on the responsive webpage is extracted and converted to speech via a text-to-speech engine and communicated to the person.
1. In a natural language dialog, a method of providing information to a user utilizing worldwide web content, the method causing a computing device to perform steps comprising:
parsing a webpage according to fields in a web-based form on the webpage;
prompting a user to provide audible information associated with the parsed webpage;
receiving speech from the user in response to the prompt;
converting the speech to text;
automatically filling in a web-based form using the text converted from the speech;
receiving a dynamically generated webpage generated according to the filled webpage form; and
communicating to the user, via synthetic speech, content from the dynamically generated webpage.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the speech relates to an entity name and location identifier.
3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the entity name comprises a business name.
4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the location identifier is an address.
5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the location identifier is a zip code.
6. The method of claim 2 , wherein the information provided to the user is location information.
7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the information provided to the user comprises a listing of a set of the geographically closest entities to the location identifier.
8. A method of interacting with the worldwide web via a telephone, the method causing a computing device to perform steps comprising:
parsing a webpage to identify input fields in the webpage;
receiving speech from a user;
converting the speech to text;
filling in the webpage input fields for a database search based on the text;
extracting information from one or more dynamic webpage generated in response to the database search;
communicating a natural speech response to the user based on the extracted information.
9. A method of automatically generating a dialog interface to a website, the method causing a computing device to perform steps comprising:
parsing a website offline to identify input fields and website content;
generating prompts for use in a spoken dialog with a user associated with the parsed website;
receiving audible user input in response to at least one generated prompt;
automatically filling input fields on the website according to the received audible user input; and
presenting information to the user in response to the filled input field from the website.
10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the step of parsing the website offline to identify input fields and website content only parses a portion of the website content, wherein at least a portion of the website parsing occurs dynamically during the spoken dialog.
11. The method of claim 9 , wherein the step of generating prompts for use in a spoken dialog with a user associated with the website further utilizes previous interaction via the spoken dialog with the user.
12. A method of automatically generating a dialog interface to a website, the method causing a computing device to perform steps comprising:
(1) offline parsing of the website to identify input fields and website content;
(2) generating prompts using the offline parsed website for use in a spoken dialog with a user associated with the website;
(3) engaging in a dialog with the user utilizing the generated prompts; and
(4) if a webpage is dynamically generated from the website during the dialog:
(a) parsing the dynamically generated webpage;
(b) generating prompts associated with the dynamically generated webpage; and
(c) continuing the dialog with the user using either the dynamically generated prompts or the prompts generated from the offline parsed website content.
13. The method of claim 12 , wherein the step of generating prompts for use in a spoken dialog with a user associated with the website further utilizes data from a previous dialog with the user.