VoiceXML (VXML) is the W3C's standard XML format for specifying interactive voice dialogues between a human and a computer. It is fully analogous to HTML, and brings the same advantages of web application development and deployment to voice applications that HTML brings to visual applications. Just as HTML documents are interpreted by a visual web browser, VoiceXML documents are interpreted by a voice browser. A common architecture is to deploy banks of voice browsers attached to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) so that users can simply pick up a phone to interact with voice applications.

There are already thousands of commercial VoiceXML applications deployed, processing many millions of calls per day. These applications perform a huge variety of services, including order inquiry, package tracking, driving directions, emergency notification, wake-up, flight tracking, voice access to email, customer relationship management, prescription refilling, audio newsmagazines, voice dialing, and real-estate information. They serve all industries, and range in size all the way up to massive national directory assistance applications.

VoiceXML has tags that instruct the voice browser to provide speech synthesis, automatic speech recognition, dialog management, and soundfile playback. The following is an example of a VoiceXML document:

More on [ VoiceXML ]

NPR Topics: Technology

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