The Development Phase
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The most important task in the development phase is to build the application. It is common wisdom that it's easier to build an application when a clear set of expectations and a properly defined and tested product architecture exists. The work in this phase should be much more straightforward as a result of the work done in the preceding phases. Key unique elements are the prompt recording (audio engineering) and grammar development activities. Note that tuning is unique to speech, and an iterative approach to development, testing, and tuning is called for.
The following list shows tasks to accomplish in this milestone.
- Develop detailed specification and test plans
- Develop dialogues and test each unit in isolation
- Select voice talent. See Remarks.
- Code and unit test application
- Write and test grammars
- Control and track audio engineering
- Integrate code, grammar and audio
- Perform usability and acceptance testing
- Debug, tune, iterate
Test Issues
Because speech is an uncertain medium testers may have some trouble coming up to speed on test procedures with automated speech recognition. Repeating exactly the same test will not necessarily result in the same outcome. This can be frustrating unless the test team has already had experience with testing speech; or works with developers at early stages to learn how to test individual modules for correct behavior despite the fact that grammars and vocabularies may be changing.
| To | See |
|---|---|
| Go to the next step. | The Deployment Phase |
| Start from the beginning. | The Speech Project Lifecycle |
| Get more information on gathering the information to create a Design Requirements Specification. | The Planning and Discovery Phase |
| Get more information on creating an approved project plan. | The Design Phase |
| Get more information on optimizing a system after deployment. | The Maintenance and Tuning Phase |
Remarks
If you are planning to run multiple applications (on a single language configuration), keep in mind that you cannot associate a specific voice with an application. Therefore, to ensure the best caller experience, select either a male or a female voice, but not both.