SPEECH-RESPONSIVE VOICE MESSAGING SYSTEM AND METHOD

A system and method for speech-responsive voice messaging, in which a Speech-Responsive Voice Messaging System (SRVMS) preferably provides a hierarchically-simple speech user interface (UI) that enables subscribers to use speech to specify commands such as mailboxes, passwords, and digits. The SRVMS generates and evaluates candidate results. The SRVMS invokes a speech UI navigation operation or a voice messaging operation according to the outcome of the evaluation of the candidate results. In the preferred embodiment, the SRVMS determines whether the candidate results are good, questionable, or bad; and whether two or more candidate results are ambiguous due to a likelihood that each such result could be a valid command. If the candidate results are questionable or ambiguous, an ambiguity resolution UI prompts the subscriber to confirm whether the best candidate result is what the subscriber intended. In response to repeated speech recognition failures, the SRVMS transfers the subscriber to a Dual Tone Multi Frequency (DTMF) UI. Transfer to the DTMF UI is also performed in response to detection of predetermined DTMF signals issued by the subscriber while the speech UI is in context. The SRVMS provides a logging unit and a reporting unit which operate in parallel with the speech UI, in a manner that is transparent to subscribers. The logging unit directs the selective logging of subscriber utterances, and the reporting unit selectively generates and maintains system performance statistics on multiple detail levels.