zagat restaurant finder final

Tufts University

Zagat Restaurant Finder A Speech Recognizer Application

Zina Saadi & Anila Chowdhury

Zagat Restaurant Finder: A Speech Recognizer Application


TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 3

Project Timeline ........................................................................................................................................ 3

Automated Speech Recognition Nowadays .............................................................................................. 4

What is Zagat restaurant Finder? ............................................................................................................. 4

Meet The Team ......................................................................................................................................... 6

Major Design Specifications .......................................................................................................................... 7

Branding .................................................................................................................................................... 7

Why Is this a good design? ........................................................................................................................ 9

Project Plan ............................................................................................................................................... 9

Flow-Chart ............................................................................................................................................... 10

Sample Scripts ......................................................................................................................................... 12

Script 1 ................................................................................................................................................ 12

Script 2 ................................................................................................................................................ 13

Script 3 ................................................................................................................................................ 15

State Tables ............................................................................................................................................. 16

Technical Design ..................................................................................................................................... 27

Application Testing ..................................................................................................................................... 29

Test Plan ...................................................................................................................................................... 29

Target user(s) .......................................................................................................................................... 29

Usability challenges................................................................................................................................. 29

What we plan to test .............................................................................................................................. 30

How we plan to test ................................................................................................................................ 30

Conclusions we hope to make ................................................................................................................ 30

Test Subjects ........................................................................................................................................... 30

Ideal conditions for usability test ............................................................................................................ 31

Key Use Cases.......................................................................................................................................... 31



Test Cases we plan to run ....................................................................................................................... 31

The scale for scoring the results of the test ............................................................................................ 35

Present our test findings for developmental changes ............................................................................ 36

Compare with similar systems (1-800-GOOG-411) ................................................................................. 36

Final Usability Testing and Findings ........................................................................................................ 36

APPENDIX .................................................................................................................................................... 37

Recording Prompts.................................................................................................................................. 37

Demo Script ................................................................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.

Survey Questionaires .............................................................................................................................. 37

Test Cases ................................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.

Restaurant Information .......................................................................................................................... 39

Selected Emails Responses ..................................................................................................................... 40

INTRODUCTION

PROJECT TIMELINE

Important Dates

April 19th 2008: Initial Draft

May 5th 2008: Prompts Recording

Update Project Plan

May 6th 2008: Usability Testing

May 7th 2008: Paper wrap-up, printing & binding

May 8th 2008: Presentation Day (20 minutes)



AUTOMATED SPEECH RECOGNITION NOWADAYS

In the early 90’s, Raymond Kurzweil1 stated in his book “The Age of Intelligent Machines”2 that

automated speech recognition was receiving considerable attention because of its potential for

commercial application. One of the major goals of Artificial Intelligence in speech at that time was to

make the interaction for human with computers more natural and intuitive. Nowadays, “Speech-

Recognition technology increasingly is being used in a variety of over-the-phone applications in the

transportation financial, telecommunications and other industries.” stated by Blade Kotelly in his book

“The Art and Business of Speech Recognition”. In addition, building a speech recognition application that

provides natural and intuitive interaction had been the major focus for speech recognizer designers,

managers and companies in order to provide callers with a unique computer-caller experience. In

return, a compelling speech recognizer would increase usability, build and spread the identity of

companies, thus increase revenues, customer satisfaction and retention.

WHAT IS ZAGAT RESTAURANT FINDER?

Zagat Restaurant Finder is a speech recognizer application that allows callers to find the right quality dining place in New York City regions. The application browses, parses, retrieves and lists restaurant information from “Zagat Survey”1 at http://www.zagat.com/, which is the world’s leading provider of consumer survey-based information on where to Eat, Drink, Stay and Play worldwide. Zagat Restaurant Finder contains restaurants from over 86 different cuisines, with Italian, and American as the lead cuisines. The figure below illustrates the cuisines distribution provided by the application.

1 He is the principal developer of the world’s first print-to-speech reading machines for the blind, the first large –

vocabulary voice-activated word processor.

2 The book won the Most Outstanding Computer Science Book of 1990 award by the Association of American

Publishers.



FIGURE 1: CUISINE COVERAGE DISTRIBUTION

Callers would call to:

Retrieve restaurants details by the name of a restaurant

Learn about the top restaurants according to preferred criteria

Browse a list of restaurants by narrowing down the results

Application specification in 4 characteristics:

Happy to help people

Fun and Joyful prompts

Simpler lingo

Clearer navigation

On April 15th, 2008, Anila and Zina conducted a survey to study the importance of the Zagat Restaurant Finder among a sample of 22 subjects. Figure 1 shows the distribution of age across the subjects, with over 70% young-adults (18-30) and 23% over 30 years old.

FIGURE 1: Subjects Age Distribution

To Illustrate the need of an Automatic Speech Recognition System, the survey’s questionnaire was designed to study how often subjects would dine in a restaurant, whether they were in a situation where they needed to lookup information about a restaurant from the internet but could not, and finally whether they were in favor of an Automated Speech Recognition System that would take care of that for them (for the exact questions asked see Appendix D). The survey’s results illustrates that:

1) Interest in a Speech Recognition Application for Restaurant finder does not depend on how often people dine. In fact, the highest interest rank/score which was 9, was selected by 6 people who stated that they dine on a weekly (5 out of 6) and on every-other week (one person only) basis, whereas, 2 people who dine more frequently showed similar interest (rank of 9).

17%

16%

6%4%4%4%3%

46%

Cuisines DistributionItalian

American

French Bistro

Japanese

French

Chinese

Eclectic and International



2) There were 10 people who showed interest in a Speech Recognizer for dining with an interest rank of 7-8, which is higher that the number of people who showed total interest (rank of 9). This is an interesting result because we will observe in later section how many of these people who were selected to test the application, show higher interest in using the application in the future.

For more specific results from the initial survey, you can consult Appendix D.

Figure 2 Illustrates the Relationship between the Degrees of Preference from 0 to 9 (very interested) for using an Automated Speech Recognizer for a Restaurant Finder and how often do people dine.

MEET THE TEAM

The completion of Automated Speech Recognizer application “Zagat Restaurant Finder” wouldn’t have been possible without the efforts of Anila Chowdhury and Zina Saadi. The team brings together a combination of over 5 years of industry experience as Software Tester Engineer (STE) and as a Computational Linguist. Anila Chowdhury completed her B.S degree in Computer Science from Mount Holyoke College, MA and worked as a Software Test Engineer at Microsoft for 2 years before joining Tufts University for her Master’s degree in Computer Science. She worked extensively on Wireless Application Protocol (WAP). Service Indication/ Service Loading (SI/SL) and Segment and Reassemble (SAR) feature Items for Windows Mobile 2003 2nd edition, over-viewed test plan developed by external vendors, run test pass, performed ad-hoc testing and created Exit Criteria (EC) pass. She also owned Partner Response Team (PRT) Logo Test Kit (LTK) and coordinated 4 Windows Mobile 2003 2nd edition LTK



runs with Microsoft LTK Team and external vendor. She is currently working part-time for AAS (American Antiquarian Society) entering data for early 1800 American elections. Zina Saadi completed a double B.S in Linguistics and Dual Math and Computer Science from Northeastern University. She brings over 3 years of architectural software design and development as well as Data-Mining, Computational-Linguistics, and Information-Retrieval experience from “Basis Technology”3. She has worked on all aspects of product development, on architecture design, as technical lead, on implementing and testing code, and on technical documentation (publishing papers and delivering talks). In the past, Zina had gained some experience in acoustic signal processing and implementing Speech Recognition software to provide real-time visual reinforcement of vocalizations produced by infants4. She is currently a part-time graduate student at Tufts University and a full-time Computational Linguist at Basis Tech. Anila and Zina attended the course “Speech Recognition: The Art, Business & Technology of Voice

User Interfaces”5 offered at Tufts college of computer science and taught by Blade Kotelly and Chris

Roby. The Zagat Restaurant Finder also brings together user-interface and technical designing skills

learnt over a period of 3 months (Spring 2008).

MAJOR DESIGN SPECIFICATIONS

BRANDING

One feature of Zagat Restaurant Finder that is apparent to the caller from the very beginning of the system’s interaction are the quality of the welcome and goodbye recorded prompts, which used a female voice talent accompanied by excerpts from Mozart’s symphony No. 40 in G Minor. For prompts continuity, the same female voice was used without the background music so that the caller remain in focus with the content of the prompts for an easy understanding of the application’s lingo and for a better navigation through the system.

The female voice talent used in the branding of Zagat Restaurant Finder is the voice of Melissa Lucius.

Melissa is the voice talent used by Basis Technology’s multi-Lingual’s Automated Speech Recognizer. In

addition to having voice talent skills, Melissa has singing skills in many languages she is fluent with

including: French, German, and Italian. Melissa’s voice was not only used to speak out the designed

prompts of the system, but it was used to speak out a list of the top 10 French, American, German, and

French restaurants, in addition to some top Arabic restaurants names transcribed by Zina Saadi for

3 Basis provides software solutions for extracting meaningful intelligence from unstructured text in many human

languages including Asian, European and Middle Eastern Languages. http://www.basistech.com

4 Visibable project at Northeastern University: http://www.neu.edu/nupr/news/0107/visibabble.html

5 Website: http://www.cs.tufts.edu/comp/150SR/

http://www.basistech.com/

http://www.neu.edu/nupr/news/0107/visibabble.html

http://www.cs.tufts.edu/comp/150SR/



pronunciation easiness. Melissa’s voice was also used to speak out phrases and names that would

contain accents (such as the accents used in French and Italian) to add a uniqueness to the system.

There were some careful decisions that were taken for the selection of the background music used at

the welcome and goodbye prompts. Taking in consideration the fact that Zagat Restaurant Finder is

there for callers who are confused about selecting a particular restaurant for dining, callers who are

looking for specific details of a particular restaurant they have in mind, or callers who want to find a

particular restaurant that fits one of many criteria such as cuisine type, location, or certain ratings that

are provided by the Zagat Survey website. Upon deciding to call Zagat Restaurant Finder, callers would

be optimistic since they are calling to get helped with deciding which restaurant to choose. In reflection

to this context, the symphony No. 40 in G Minor of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) comes into

the picture. This piece of music was written by Mozart in 1788 despite the fact that it was written at the

time when he was poorer than ever and suffering from the death of his six-month old daughter

“Theresa”, to illustrate the fact that Mozart was maintaining “a zest for life and unwavering optimism”6.

The fact that Mozart wrote this piece of music to escape his troubled personal life and be optimistic for

something better or happier reflects the fact that callers of Zagat Restaurant Finder are troubled by not

being able to decide on where to dine and would feel optimistic to call the application for help and for a

happy satisfaction.

Multi-cultural music was chosen as a background sounds in the system. The sound piece selection would

happen randomly and according to the cuisine type if it is specified, otherwise it plays classical music by

default. The table below gives more insight regarding the selection of the background music files.

Cuisine Type Song Title Comments

French “La Vie en Rose” Song by Edith Piaf, used 3 sound

files

Indian Chaiyya Sound track from the movie

“Inside Man”, used 3 sound files

Italian “Lasciate Mi Cantare” Song title translates to English as

“let me sing”, used 5 files. An

alternative name of the song is

“L’Italiano”

Spanish Bamboleo Song by Gypsy Kings, used 5 files

Egyptian Ah Ya Shoo’ Used 2 files

German Und Wenn ein Lied Song by Xavier Nadoo, used 3

files

Russian Katusha Russian Famous Folklore Song,

6 From page 7 in the booklet of “In Classical Mood” CD’s titled “Morning Mist”



used 2 files

Chinese Yung Chun Baixue Classical Song, used 5 files

Tunisian Avava Ynouva Berber Song From North Africa,

used 4 files

Irish Firedance By Daniel Ash, used 3 files

Morroccan Index Album Track 8 By Group Index (Algerian group),

used 3 files

Persian Bahar Used 2 files

WHY IS THIS A GOOD DESIGN?

The design of the Zagat Restaurant Finder application is a good design because it fits most of the 10

principles of good design for DIETER RAMS7:

1. It is a double-edge sword since it combines two of the important fields in Artificial Intelligence’s world, namely the automatic speech recognition field and the text processing/data mining field, which makes the system Innovative. 2. Makes the product useful since it satisfies the needs of people. About 90% of 22 people who were passed a survey on how likely they find a Speech Recognizer Application useful for Restaurant lookup, were in favor of using such application. This also makes the design more concerned with the environment since it copes with the current lifestyle of people which is characterized by a busy lifestyle, and the wide usage of wireless communication technologies including cell phones and text messaging. Zagat Restaurant Finder connects callers with people who had evaluated restaurants and shared their opinion on Zagat-Survey anytime, and anywhere throughout the Boston and New York regions. 4. It is as little design as possible since it uses the ideas of polymorphic states and dynamic retrieval. 5. It is durable since the system can be functional even if the Zagat-Survey website is down.

PROJECT PLAN

7 http://gizmodo.com/343641/1960s-braun-products-hold-the-secrets-to-apples-future

http://gizmodo.com/343641/1960s-braun-products-hold-the-secrets-to-apples-future



The completion of Zagat Restaurant Finder wouldn’t have been possible without a project plan

(often referred to as the schedule of a project). The project plan measures a day by 8 working

hours. The image below, illustrates the project plan created for Zagat Restaurant Finder:

FIGURE 2 PROJECT PLAN/SCHEDULE

FLOW-CHART



1000

Welcome

2000

Main_Menu

6000

zagat_top_list

8000

resturant_info

9000

menu_options

9999

Goodbye

“Goodbye”

<restaurant_name>

<cuisine>

<neighborhood>

“go back”

“main menu" <restaurant_name>

2500

Find_by_options

5000

Search_Results

7000

narrow_options

“Narrow Them”

“food rating”

“décor rating”

“service rating”

“price rating”

7500

narrow_values

<rating_value>

8500

restaurant_details

“I’m done”

8200

rest_info_menu

“address”

“phone”

“ratings”

“description”

5500

List_All

<restaurant_name>

result.size<25

“List All”“Top Zagat”

“cuisine” “neighborhood”

3000

Cuisine

4000

Neighborhood

<cuisine_name> <neighborhood_name>



SAMPLE SCRIPTS

SCRIPT 1

User Prompts Notes

System Welcome to Zagat Restaurant Finder, where we recommend and

provide information about New York City Restaurants.

Welcome prompt, played

only once

System What is the name your restaurant?

If you don’t know, you can also say a cuisine type (for example:

French) or a neighborhood name (for example: Astoria)

Main Menu

Caller Heidelberg

System Heidelberg is a German restaurant located at East 80s

neighborhood.

Voice of Katarina

(German)

System What would you like to hear? You can say: Address. Phone

number. Ratings. Description. or I'm Done.

Caller Address

System The restaurant is located at 1648 Second Ave. New York, NY,

10028.



Caller Phone number

System Their Phone Number is (212) 628-2332.

System Would you like me to transfer this call to the restaurant?

Caller No You can say yes, and get

connected if you want!



Caller I’m done

System What would you like to do next? You can say, Go back or Main

Menu. To exit the system, say Goodbye.

Caller Goodbye



System Thank you for calling Zagat Restaurant Finder. Goodbye! End of session

SCRIPT 2

User Prompts Notes




only once




Main Menu

Caller French

System I have found 203 restaurants that matched your search criteria.

System To narrow down your search results, say “Narrow Down”. To

hear top zagat rated restaurants, say “Top Zagat”.

“List All” will not be

available until result size <

25

Caller Narrow Down

System How would you like to narrow it down? You can select

Neighborhood, Food Rating, Décor Rating, Service Rating, Price

Rating, to enter new values or change Cuisine.

Caller Price Rating

System In the Price rating, I've got restaurants that have price range

between 0 (on the low end) and 86 (on the high end.) What's

the maximum Price you want to pay?

Caller 15



hear top zagat rated restaurants, say “Top Zagat”. To hear the

entire list alphabetically, say “List All”.

List All option opens up if

list <25

Caller List All

System Ok I will list the restaurants….. When you hear the name you

want, just say it.



System ALAIN DUCASSE . Brasserie eight and a half . Bodega .

CHANTERELLE . Cafe Joul

Voice of Julie (French)

System Say next to hear the next 5, repeat to hear the previous 5. You

can also say start over to hear the list from the beginning.

Caller Next

System Chazal . Gaby Brasserie Francaise . LA GRENOUILLE . La

Bicyclette . Madison Bistro

System Say Repeat, next or start over

Caller Madison Bistro

System You selected “Madison Bistro”. Is that correct? Explicit confirmation

Caller Yes

System Madison Bistro is a French restaurant located at Murray Hill ,

East thirty neighborhood.

Voice of Julie (French)



Caller Address

System The restaurant is located at 238 Madison Ave. New York, NY,

10016 2816.



Caller Description

System Dim lights and terra cotta toned walls create an intime

ambiance at this newly renovated Murray Hill French; early

reports on its menu of bistro classics are positive.



Caller I’m done


Menu. To exit the system, say Goodbye

Caller Goodbye




SCRIPT 3

User Prompts Notes




only once




Main Menu

Caller Astoria



hear top zagat rated restaurants, say “Top Zagat”. To hear the

entire list alphabetically, say “List All”.

Caller Top Zagat

System Listing Top Zagat Restaurants… When you hear the name you

want, just say it.

System Ponticello . Esperides . SAgapo . Piccola Venezia . Christos

Hasapo Taverna . Karyatis . Taverna Vraka . Tellys Taverna .

Trattoria Lincontro

Caller Ponticello

System You selected “Ponticello”. Is that correct?

Caller Yes

System Ponticello is an Italian restaurant located at Astoria

neighborhood.

Voice of Jennifer (Italian)



Caller Phone Number

System Their Phone Number is (718) 278-4514.

System Would you like me to transfer this call to the restaurant?



Caller No You can say “Yes”, if you

want



Caller I’m done


Menu. To exit the system, say Goodbye

Caller Goodbye


STATE TABLES

1000_Welcome

Play Prompt

Entering from

Program starts here

Prompts Name Condition Wording

10001 always Welcome to Zagat Restaurant Finder, where we recommend and provide information about New York City Restaurants.

Condition Action

Always Go to: 2000_Main_Menu

Module Settings

Default

2000_Main_Menu Speech Input

Entering from

1000_Welcome

Prompts Type Name Wording

Initial 20001 What is the name your restaurant?

If you don’t know, you can also say a cuisine type (for example: French) or a neighborhood name (for example: Astoria)

Timeout 1 20002 I'm sorry, I didn't hear you.

Timeout 2 20003 I'm sorry, I still didn't hear you. Say the name of your restaurant. or a cuisine type. or a neighborhood name.



Retry 1 20004 I'm sorry, I didn't understand.

Retry 2 20005 I'm sorry, I still didn't understand you. Would you try one more time? Say help if you need more information.

Help 20006 In order to find a restaurant I need to know how would you like to search for it.

If you would like to search for a restaurant by it’s name, say the name

If you would like to search restaurants for a specific type of cuisine for example: French, say the cuisine name.

If you would like to search restaurants for a specific of neighborhood for example: Astoria, say the neighborhood name.

Option Vocabulary DTMF Action Confirm.

<restaurant_name> Go to: 8000_restInfo If necessary

<cuisine_name> Go to: 5000_Search_Results If necessary

<neighborhood_name> Go to: 5000_Search_Results If necessary

Commands

Module Settings

Default

3000_ Cuisine Speech Input

Entering from

5000_Search_Results


Initial 41001 What type of Cuisine? To hear our list of cuisines say “List”

Timeout 1 41002 I’m sorry. I did not hear that.

Timeout 2 41003 I’m sorry. I still did not hear that. Please tell me a type of cuisine, for example: Chinese, American, French.

Retry 1 41004 I’m sorry. I did not understand you.

Retry 2 41005 I’m sorry. I still did not understand you. Would you try one more time? Or else say help, if you need more information.

Help 41006 Tell me the name of a Cuisine and I will list restaurants of that type. To hear our list of cuisines say “List”.


<cuisine_name> Go to: 3500_Confirmation If necessary

Commands



Module Settings

Default

3500_ Confirmation Speech Input

Entering from

3000_cuisine, 4000_neighborhood, 5500_list_all, 5600_list_all_options, 6000_top_list


Initial 41001 What type of Cuisine? To hear our list of cuisines say “List”


Timeout 2 41003 I’m sorry. I still did not hear that. Please tell me a type of cuisine, for example: Chinese, American, French.



Help 41006 Tell me the name of a Cuisine and I will list restaurants of that type. To hear our list of cuisines say “List”.


If entered from 3000_cuisine

<cuisine_name> Go to: 5000_Search_Result If necessary

If entered from 4000_neighborhood

<neighborhood_

name> Go to: 5000_Search_Result If necessary

If entered from 5500_list_all, 5600_list_all_options, 6000_top_list

<restaurant_na

me> Go to: 8000_rest_info If necessary

Commands

Module Settings

Default

4000_Neighborhood Speech Input

Entering from

5000_Search_Results


Initial 42001 What Neighborhood? To hear our list of neighborhoods say “List”




Timeout 2 42003 I’m sorry. I still did not hear that. Please tell me the name of a neighborhood, for example: Astoria, Brooklyn, Staten Island.



Help 42006 Tell me the name of a Neighborhood and I will list restaurants that are located near that area. To hear our list of neighborhoods say “List”.


<neighborhood_name> Go to: 3500_Confirmation If necessary

Commands

Module Settings

Default

5000_Search_Results

Play Prompt

Entering from

2000_main_menu, 3000_cuisine, 4000_neighborhood, 7000_narrow_list


50001 always I have found <list_size> restaurants that matched your search criteria.

Condition Action

If <list_size> < 7 Go to: 5500_List_All

If <list_size> > 7 Go to: 5200_Search_Result_Options

Module Settings

Default

5200_Search_Result_options Speech Input

Entering from

5000_Search_Results


If <list_size> < 25 50001 To narrow down your search results, say “Narrow Down”. To hear top zagat rated restaurants, say “Top Zagat”. To hear the entire list alphabetically, say “List All”.

If <list_size> > 25 50002 To narrow down your search results, say “Narrow Down”. To hear top zagat rated restaurants, say “Top Zagat”.

If <list_size>==0 50003 Lets go back and select new options to narrow down your search.




Timeout 2 50005 I’m sorry. I still did not hear that. Please select an option from “List All”, “Top Zagat” or “Narrow Down”



Help 50008 Select an option to hear the list.

If you would like to hear the Top Zagat Rated restaurants from the list alphabetically say “Top Zagat”

If you would like to narrow down your search results say “Narrow Down”


“List All” Go to: 5500_List_All If necessary

“Top Zagat” Go to: 6000_Top_List If necessary

“Narrow Down” Go to: 7000_Narrow_List If necessary

Commands

Module Settings

Default

5500_List_All Speech Input

Entering from

5000_Search_Results


Initial 55001 Ok I will list the restaurants….. When you hear the name you want, just say it.

<restaurant_name_1>, <restaurant_name_2>, ……. ,<restaurant_name_n>


Timeout 2 55003 I’m sorry. I still did not hear that. Please select a restaurant to hear more information.



Help 55006 Select a restaurant to hear more information about it. You can also say “start over” to hear the list from the beginning.


<restaurant_name> Go to: 3500_confirmation If necessary

“start over” Go to: 5500_List_All

Commands

Module Settings

Default



5600_List_All_Options Speech Input

Entering from

5500_List_All


Initial prompt, If result_size>7

56001 Say next to hear the next 5, repeat to hear the previous 5. You can also say start over to hear the list from the beginning.

If not initial prompt 56002 Say Next, Repeat or Start Over.

Initial prompt, if result_size< 7

56003 Say repeat to hear the previous names.


Timeout 2 56005 I’m sorry. I still did not hear that. Please select a restaurant, or say next, start over.






“start over” Go to: 5600_List_All If necessary

Commands

Module Settings

Default

6000_Top_List Speech Input

Entering from

5000_Search_Results


Initial 60001 Listing Top Zagat Restaurants… When you hear the name you want, just say it.

<restaurant_name_1>, <restaurant_name_2>…… <restaurant_name_n>


Timeout 2 60003 I’m sorry. I still did not hear that. Please select a restaurant to hear more information.








“start over” Go to: 6000_Top_List

Commands

Module Settings

Default

7000_Narrow_Options Speech Input

Entering from

5000_Search_Results


Initial 70001 How would you like to narrow it down? You can select <list_1> to enter new values or change <list_2>


Timeout 2 70003 I’m sorry. I still did not hear that. Please select one of the options: Cuisine, Neighborhood, Food Rating, Décor Rating, Service Rating, Or Price Rating.



Help 70006 You will need to select an option to narrow down your search.

To narrow your search based on a specific cuisine type say “Cuisine”

To narrow your search based on a specific neighborhood say “Neighborhood”

To narrow your search based on Food quality say “Food Rating”

To narrow your search based on Decor quality say “Decor Rating”

To narrow your search based on Service quality say “Service Rating”

To narrow your search based on a Price range, say “Price Rating”


“Food Rating” Go to: 7500_Narrow_Values If necessary

“Décor Rating” Go to: 7500_Narrow_Values If necessary

“Service Rating” Go to: 7500_Narrow_Values If necessary

“Price Rating” Go to: 7500_Narrow_Values If necessary

“Cuisine” Go to: 3000_Cuisine If necessary

“Neighborhood” Go to: 4000_Neighborhood If necessary

Commands

Module Settings

Default



7500_Narrow_Values Speech Input

Entering from

7000_Narrow_Options


If caller selects “Food Rating”

75001 In the Food rating, I've got restaurants that rate between <var_food1> (on the low end) and <var_food2> (on the high end.) What's the minimum Food score you want to use?

If caller selects “Décor Rating”

75002 In the Decor rating, I've got restaurants that rate between <var_decor1> (on the low end) and <var_decor2> (on the high end.) What's the minimum Décor score you want to use?

If caller selects “Service Rating”

75003 In the Service rating, I've got restaurants that rate between <var_service1> (on the low end) and <var_service2> (on the high end.) What's the minimum Service score you want to use?

If caller selects “Price Rating”

75004 In the Price rating, I've got restaurants that have price range between <var_price1> (on the low end) and <var_price2> (on the high end.) What's the maximum Price you want to pay?


Timeout 2 75006 I’m sorry. I still did not hear that. Please enter a value for your selected rating.



Help 75009 Please enter a value to narrow down your search based on your selected rating.


<narrow_value> Go to: 7500_Narrow_List If necessary

Commands

Module Settings

Default

8000_Restaurant_Info

Play Prompt

Entering from

4000_Name, 5000_Search_Results, 6000_Top_List, 7000_Narrow_List


80001 always <restaurant_name> is an <cuisine_name> restaurant located at <neighborhood_name> neighborhood.

Condition Action

Always Go to: 8200_Restaurant_Info_Menu



Module Settings

Default

8200_Restaurant_Info_Menu Speech Input

Entering from

8000_Restaurant_Info


Initial 82001 What would you like to hear? You can say: Address. Phone number. Ratings. Description. Or I’m one.


Timeout 2 82003 I’m sorry. I still did not hear that. To hear more information about the restaurant, please select one of the followings: Address. Phone number. Ratings. Description. Or I am done.



Help 85006 I can provide you the Address, Phone number, Ratings, Description, of the restaurant. Please select of the options.


“Address” Go to: 8500_restaurant_address If necessary

“Phone number” Go to: 8600_restaurant_phone If necessary

“Ratings” Go to: 8700_restaurant_ratings If necessary

“Description” Go to: 8800_restaurant_description If necessary

“I am done” Go to: 9000_Menu_Options

Commands

Module Settings

Default

8500_Restaurant_address

Play Prompt

Entering from

8200_Restaurant_Info_Menu


85001 always The restaurant is located at <restaurant_address>

Condition Action


Module Settings

Default



8600_Restaurant_Phone Speech Input

Entering from



Initial 86001 Their Phone number is <restaurant_phone>.

Would you like me to transfer this call to the restaurant?


Timeout 2 86003 I’m sorry. I still did not hear that. Please say yes or no.



Help 86006 I can connect this call to the restaurant and this session will still be active and can resume after you end your call with the restaurant. Would you like to do that?


“Yes” Transfer call to <restaurant_phone> If necessary

“No” Go to: 8200_Restaurant_Info_Menu If necessary

Commands

Module Settings

Default

8700_Restaurant_Ratings

Play Prompt

Entering from



87001 always Food Rating is <food_rating>

Decor Rating is <décor_rating]>

Service Rating is <service_rating>

Price Rating is <price_rating>

Condition Action


Module Settings

Default



8800_Restaurant_Description

Play Prompt

Entering from



88001 always <restaurant_description>

Condition Action


Module Settings

Default

9000_Menu_Options Speech Input

Entering from



Initial 90001 What would you like to do next? You can say Go back or Main Menu. To exit the system, say Goodbye!


Timeout 2 90003 I’m sorry. I still did not hear that. Please say Go back. Main Menu Or Goodbye.



Help 90006 To hear Address, Phone Number, Ratings and Description of the restaurant say Go Back.

If you would like to search for another restaurant say “Main Menu”.

Or say Goodbye to exit the system.


“Go back” Go to: 8200_Restaurant_Info_Menu If necessary

“Main Menu” Go to: 2000_Main_Menu If necessary

“Goodbye” Go to: 9999_Goodbye If necessary

Commands

Module Settings

Default



9999_Goodbye

Play Prompt

Entering from

9000_Menu_Options


99991 always Thank you for calling Zagat Restaurant Finder. Goodbye!

Condition Action

Always Exit

Module Settings

Default

TECHNICAL DESIGN

The major workloads for building the Zagat Restaurant Finder Application were partitioned over the

team members based on their individual skills, willingness to accomplish the task and the overall

grasp of the major design and implementation components taught throughout the course. In

addition to workloads divisions, each team member reviewed the work of the other team member.

The table below illustrates the major workloads partition:

Project Component Component Overview Team Member

Scripts, Flow-Chart,

State Tables

Initially designed the scripts and flow charts and

finalized the implementation as summarized in the

state tables. The design was then reviewed by Zina.

Anila Chowdhury

Technical Design Met with Anila, created a technical plan and

summarized the technical design.

Zina Saadi

User-Interface

Implementation

Workind on the cgi/vxml part as well as added some

cool functionality such as confirm! Or connecting to

the restaurant.

Anila Chowdhury

Back-End

Implementation

Wrote ruby code for parsing xml, python code for

Unicode conversion, after data extraction, data were

stored in pstore for a while until bugs were raised in

using pstore, then the data were hardcoded in a

ruby file in a hash format

Zina Saadi



Creating Test Cases Created test cases that address each feature of the

application.

Anila Chowdhury

Merging Together UI

and Back-End

Implementations

Worked on merging both the front end and backend

application together and fixed most bugs, plus added

some ruby functionality.

Zina Saadi

Recording Prompts Met with the voice talent: Melissa Lucius then used

audacity to segment voice files as well as

background music.

Zina Saadi

Final Report Put together information and project

accomplishments including: diagrams, statistical

charts, images, tables and summarized paragraphs.

Zina Saadi

As for the Technical design implementation, there were 3 major components that were taken in

consideration when the load of work was divided; these 3 components are illustrated as: the Front-End

components, Back-End components and the Merging module responsible for connecting both

components together. The Figure below, illustrated the main sub-components used to implement each

of these 3 major components:

FIGURE 3 APPLICATION OVERVIEW



In summary, Coding responsibility was divided between Anila and Zina. Anila took care of implementing

the Front-End Structure. She did the cgi scripts and Zina did the xml data extraction. Anila created 9 cgi

files that contained all the vxml generation codes, passing parameters and calling Zina's functions. The

basic flow of the vxml can be found from the flowchart. All the cgi contains customized help, noinput,

nomatch and explicit/ implicit confirmation (for the most relevant ones). 2000_main_menu contains a

grammar that can recognize what the caller said and associate a type with it as well (name, cuisine or

neighborhood). 5000_searchResult returns a list o restaurant names, and depending on the length of

the list different options are available. If the size of result is less than 1 then the caller is asked to change

their narrow options. If the size is 7 or less than system just reads the entire list to the caller, and if

above 7, the caller has the option to narrow down and if above 10, listen to top Zagat rated restaurants.

The navigation through a list was designed in a different way, where 5 results were given to the caller at

a time. Each time a caller had the options to select, or say next, repeat or start over. This gave the caller

control of the list and made it simpler and user friendly. 7000_narrowList had boundary checking

conditions every time a caller entered a value to narrow down his search according to his choice of

rating (food, decor, price etc). 8000_restInfo had structures to save values extracted from the xml, and

the cgi could transfer a call to the restaurant if the caller wants to. Beautiful music was chosen by Zina

throughout the application to accompany Anila's vxml files. As for the Back-End Structure, Zina used

python to convert accents marks utilized in French, Spanish and Italian, then she used XPath from the

REXML library in ruby to extract the data from the xml file sent by the professor of the course Blade

Kotelly. Since XPAtH is basically a DOM Parser and the xml file was not in a tree structure format, it took

1:00 to extract the entire needed data in a hash that was then saved in pstore, which gets called by

<restaurantDataInterface.rb> to create the hash that is called by all the functions needed by the cgi files

that Anila created.

APPLICATION TESTING

TEST PLAN

TARGET USER(S) The target users for our application are regular web or phone users. Anyone from beginning level/

laggard users to advanced can use this application. The target audience’s age would range from 21-55.

The frequency of their use would depend on the number of times they go out to eat at restaurants.

USABILITY CHALLENGES i. How similar the test prototype experience is to real application experience.



ii. How clear and intuitive each tasks are (adding cuisines, narrowing down by food ratings or price range)

iii. List restaurants and give options to navigate through it efficiently iv. Ask minimum number of questions and collect the right information v. Compare it with other available restaurant recommendation phone application

WHAT WE PLAN TO TEST How well test subjects understand the features (can they identify what it does?)

Test basic functionalities like find a restaurant by name, by cuisine or narrow down search results according to food or price ratings

How easy is the application to learn

How smooth is the navigation between different states

How clearly they can remember the steps to accomplish different tasks

How well they can use the universal commands

How helpful the noinput, nomatch and help commands are

HOW WE PLAN TO TEST We initially did a “wizard of oz” testing with a subject where one of us pretended to be the system and

the subject was the caller. Sample scripts were used for the test, and attached to the appendix section

of this report.

We decided to have 2 phases of testing for Zagat Phone Line Application. Our pilot testing happened

with a small prototype, which has basic functionalities like finding a restaurant by cuisine, by

neighborhood etc implemented, and a much smaller data. Subjects called the system, and tried to

accomplish some tasks pre-defined by us and give us feedback. We also used the be-vocal log files to

analyze the data.

Once we got the initial feedback on the working prototype, we will fine-tune the design and implement

all the functions (top restaurants, checking boundaries, number of results, navigation through a list etc).

The final version will include a full implementation of all the design we proposed in our initial plan, play

all the audio files as prompts, and run with all the restaurant data. We hope to run extensive usability

tests and fix high priority and high frequency errors in the system.

CONCLUSIONS WE HOPE TO MAKE i. How user friendly the system is

ii. How easily the tasks can be completed iii. Can the user find all the commands/ features? iv. Can the user remember the functionalities?

TEST SUBJECTS For this project, we are planning to ask our friends and class members to test this application. We can

also ask students of our departments to take part in this activity.



IDEAL CONDITIONS FOR USABILITY TEST i. Relaxed environment (in a room)

ii. Driving a car iii. If possible subjects can make notes and time each task

KEY USE CASES i. Launch application

ii. Find a restaurant by Name (from main menu) iii. Find restaurants by Cuisine (from main menu) iv. Find restaurants by Neighborhood (from main menu) v. Navigate through a List of restaurants

vi. Listen to Top Zagat restaurant List vii. Narrow a list of restaurants by Food Rating

viii. Narrow a list of restaurants by Decor Rating ix. Narrow a list of restaurants by Service Rating x. Narrow a list of restaurants by Price Rating

xi. Narrow a list of restaurants by Neighborhood xii. Narrow a list of restaurants by Cuisine

xiii. Select a Restaurant from a list of restaurants xiv. Listen to the Address of a selected restaurant xv. Listen to the Phone No of a selected restaurant

xvi. Listen to the Ratings of a selected restaurant xvii. Listen to the Description of a selected restaurant

xviii. Get connected to the restaurant over the phone xix. Navigate to Main Menu from different states xx. Repeat information whenever desired

TEST CASES WE PLAN TO RUN i. Launch Application (call bevocal)

a. Dial 1-877-338-6225 b. Enter Pin c. Application starts Success: Welcome message is played

Listed: “Welcome to Zagat Restaurant Finder, where we recommend and provide information

about New York City Restaurants.”

ii. Find a restaurant by Name a. Launch Application b. Say “jo jo” as the name of the restaurant Success: application recognizes the restaurant

Hear: “Jo Jo is a French Bistro located at East sixty neighborhood.”



iii. Find restaurants by Cuisine a. Launch Application b. Say “German” as the cuisine Success: application recognizes the cuisine and returns a list of restaurant names.

Listed: “Gebhardt's, Hallo Berlin, Heidelberg, Killmeyer's, Niederstein's, Rolf's, Zum Stammtisch”

iv. Find restaurants by Neighborhood a. Launch Application b. Say “Bronx” as the neighborhood Success: application recognizes the neighborhood and returns a list of restaurant names.

Listen: “Bellavista Café, Dominicks, Enzos, Jimmys Bronx Café, Le Refuge Inn,

Lobster Box, Marios, Mona Lisa Gourmet Pizza, Robertos, Starbucks”

v. Navigate through a List of restaurants a. Launch Application b. Say “German” as the cuisine c. Application returns a list of restaurants Success: application correctly lists the restaurants and gives caller the options to say repeat or

next, and select a restaurant.

Listen: “Gebhardt's, Hallo Berlin, Heidelberg, Killmeyer's, Niederstein's.

Say next to hear the next 5, repeat to hear the previous 5. You can also say start over to hear the

list from the beginning.”

vi. Create Top Zagat restaurant List using criteria defined by the user a. Launch Application b. Say “Astoria” as the neighborhood c. Application returns a list of restaurants d. Select “Top List” Success: application lists the top Zagat rated restaurants and gives caller the options to say

repeat or next, and select a restaurant.

Listen: “one hundred and one, St Michel, Baci Italian Restaurant, Embers, Tuscany Grill, Chianti,

Chadwicks, Elia, Areo”

vii. Narrow a list of restaurants by Food Rating a. Launch Application



b. Say “Italian” as the cuisine c. Application returns a list of restaurants d. Select “Narrow Them” e. Select “Food Rating” f. Say “26” Success: application creates a narrowed list of restaurants using neighborhood and food rating

criteria

Listen: “BABBO, IL GIGLIO, IL MULINO, SCALINI FEDELI, Trattoria RomanaTrattoria Lincontro.”

viii. Narrow a list of restaurants by Decor Rating a. Launch Application b. Say “Italian” as the cuisine c. Application returns a list of restaurants d. Select “Narrow Them” e. Select “Decor Rating” f. Say “25” Success: application creates a narrowed list of restaurants using neighborhood and décor rating

criteria

Listen: “Palio, RAINBOW ROOM, SCALINI FEDELI.”

ix. Narrow a list of restaurants by Service Rating a. Launch Application b. Say “Italian” as the cuisine c. Application returns a list of restaurants d. Select “Narrow Them” e. Select “Service Rating” f. Say “24” Success: application creates a narrowed list of restaurants using neighborhood and service

rating criteria

Listen: “BABBO, Erminia, Rughetta, SCALINI FEDELI, Trattoria Lincontro”

x. Narrow a list of restaurants by Price Rating a. Launch Application b. Say “thai” as the cuisine c. Application returns a list of restaurants d. Select “Narrow Them” e. Select “Price Rating” f. Say “20” Success: application creates a narrowed list of restaurants using neighborhood and price rating

criteria



Listen: “Pad Thai Noodle Lounge, Rungsit Thai, Vynl”

xi. Narrow a list of restaurants by Cuisine a. Launch Application b. Say “Bronx” as the neighborhood c. Application returns a list of restaurants d. Select “Narrow Them” e. Select “Cuisine” f. Say “Italian” Success: application creates a narrowed list of restaurants using neighborhood and cuisine

criteria.

Listen: “Bellavista Café, Dominicks, Enzos, Marios, Mona Lisa Gourmet Pizza, Robertos”

xii. Narrow a list of restaurants by Neighborhood a. Launch Application b. Say “Italian” as the cuisine c. Application returns a list of restaurants d. Say “Narrow Them” e. Select “Neighborhood” f. Say “Bronx” Success: application creates a narrowed list of restaurants using neighborhood and cuisine

criteria

Listen: “Bellavista Café, Dominicks, Enzos, Marios, Mona Lisa Gourmet Pizza, Robertos”

xiii. Select a Restaurant from a list of restaurants a. Launch Application b. Select “by Neighborhood” c. Say “Bronx” as the neighborhood for the search d. A list of restaurants is created e. Select “Marios” Success: application prompts: Marios is an Italian restaurant located in the Bronx neighborhood

of New York City.

xiv. Listen to the Address of a selected restaurant a. Launch Application b. Say “Aki Sushi” c. Select “Address” Success: caller hears: The restaurant is located at1425 York Avenue (between 75th & 76th

Streets) New York, NY



xv. Listen to the Phone No of a selected restaurant a. Launch Application b. Say “Aki Sushi” c. Select “Phone” Success: application prompts: (212) 628-8885

xvi. Listen to the Ratings of a selected restaurant a. Launch Application b. Say “Aki Sushi” c. Select “Rating” Success: caller hears: Food rating 21, Décor rating 15, Service rating 19, Price rating 32

xvii. Listen to the Description of a selected restaurant a. Launch Application b. Say “Aki Sushi” c. Select “Description” Success: caller hears: "Thank God, a sushi place came to York Avenue" sigh far East Side locals

happy to have this "tiny", mid priced Japanese around; but while most rave over the "fresh,

imaginative rolls", dissenters sniff "the tuna needs a tune-up", ditto the "zero decor."

xviii. Transfer call to the restaurant a. Launch Application b. Say “Aki Sushi” c. Select “Phone” d. Say “yes” to connect to the restaurant prompt Success: application connects to the restaurant

xix. Navigate to Main Menu from different states a. Launch Application b. Say “Zephyr Grill” c. Select “I am done” d. Select “Main Menu” Success: application goes back to main menu

THE SCALE FOR SCORING THE RESULTS OF THE TEST We’ll ask our test subjects to give a value on a scale of 1-5 for each task

o How difficult it was to complete o How difficult it was to learn



How easy was it to navigate through the states (scale of 1-5)

We’ll also ask following questions:

What are the top 3 tasks they liked?

What are the top 3 tasks that can be improved?

PRESENT OUR TEST FINDINGS FOR DEVELOPMENTAL CHANGES The lowest rated tasks will be considered for a re-design, especially if they are high-frequency tasks. Also

if majority of the test subjects have complain about a feature, we’ll take that into consideration as well.

If any of the suggested fix does not push back our development cycle, and delivery date we’ll also think

of adding additional features.

COMPARE WITH SIMILAR SYSTEMS (1-800-GOOG-411) During our initial survey someone mentioned about Google’s application that does similar

functions to our system. We called the system to figure out the strengths and weaknesses of that

and to compare with ours. First of all, Google’s one has a larger database and asks the caller for

his city and the state, and it also asks for the business type. Our system for now can only handle

restaurants, located in New York City. However, when I tried with Boston (and Seattle) city they

listed only 8 restaurants, which is very small compared to our 1500+ records. Google lists the

restaurant names together with the neighborhoods they belong to, and caller can only select a

name by an associated number or pressing that key. Once selected their system can provide caller

a short description or connect him to the restaurant. Our system on the other hand can take any

name (not limited to 8), or cuisine or neighborhood, provide a list and narrow it by other relevant

categories. Google’s system seemed to be more of a yellow page over the phone type of thing.

FINAL USABILITY TESTING AND FINDINGS Please see the attached emails for usability testing results and feedback.



APPENDIX

RECORDING PROMPTS

SURVEY QUESTIONAIRES

Initial Survey



RESTAURANT INFORMATION

CUISINE LIST

Afghan Cambodian Ethiopian Jamaican Pizza

American Caribbean Filipino Japanese Polish

Argentinean Chinese French Jewish Portuguese

Armenian Colombian Hamburgers Mexican and Tex Mex South American

Asian Continental Health Food Middle Eastern Southern and Soul

Australian Cuban Hot Dogs Moroccan Southwestern

Austrian Delis and Sandwich Shops Hungarian Noodle Shops Spanish

Bakeries Dim Sum Indian Nuevo Latino Steakhouses

Bar B Q Dominican Indonesian Persian Swiss

Belgian Eclectic and International Irish Peruvian Tapas

Brasserie Egyptian Israeli Puerto Rican Thai

Brazilian English Italian Russian Tibetan

Burmese Eritrean Korean Scandinavian Tunisian Cajun and Creole

Kosher Seafood Turkish

Californian French Bistro Lebanese Senegalese Ukrainian Coffee Shops and Diners German Malaysian Soups Vegetarian Coffeehouses and Desserts Greek

Mediterranean South African Venezuelan

Vietnamese

NEIGHBORHOOD LIST

Astoria East 30s Gramercy Park Sheepshead Bay

Bay Ridge East 40s Gravesend SoHo Little Italy

Bayside East 50s Greenpoint Staten Island

Bensonhurst East 60s Greenwich Village Sunnyside

Boerum Hill East 70s Jackson Heights Sunset Park Brighton Beach East 80s Little Neck

TriBeCa Downtown

Bronx East 90s Long Island City Union Square

Brooklyn East Village Lower East Side West 30s



Heights

Carroll Gardens Elmhurst

Meatpacking District West 40s

Central Village Flatiron District Middle Village West 50s

Chelsea Flushing Murray Hill West 60s

Chinatown Forest Hills NoHo West 70s

Cobble Hill Fort Greene Ocean Parkway West 80s

Coney Island Fresh Meadows Ozone Park West 90s

Corona Garment District Park Slope Williamsburg

Downtown Glendale Prospect Heights

Rego Park

SELECTED EMAILS RESPONSES

From: Eric Montagut, Senior Principal Engineer, Basis Technology



From: Aniket Ahmed, Senior Consultant, Booz Allen Hamilton

zagat restaurant finder final

Documents