Augmenting user interfaces with adaptive speech commands

We present a system that augments any unmodified Java application with an adaptive speech interface. The augmented system learns to associate spoken words and utterances with interface actions such as button clicks. Speech learning is constantly active and searches for correlations between what the user says and does. Training the interface is seamlessly integrated with using the interface. As the user performs normal actions, she may optionally verbally describe what she is doing. By using a phoneme recognizer, the interface is able to quickly learn new speech commands. Speech commands are chosen by the user and can be recognized robustly due to accurate phonetic modelling of the user's utterances and the small size of the vocabulary learned for a single application. After only a few examples, speech commands can replace mouse clicks. In effect, selected interface functions migrate from keyboard and mouse to speech. We demonstrate the usefulness of this approach by augmenting jfig, a drawing application, where speech commands save the user from the distraction of having to use a tool palette.