"Do That Again": Evaluating Spoken Dialogue Interfaces

We present a new technique for evaluating spoken dialogue interfaces that allows us to separate the dialogue behavior from the rest of the speech system. By using a dialogue simulator that we have developed, we can gather usability data on the system s dialogue interaction and behaviors that can guide improvements to the speech interface. Preliminary testing has shown promising results, suggesting that it is possible to test properties of dialogue separately from other factors such as recognition quality.