Usability issues in an interactive speech-to-speech translation system for healthcare

  • Authors:

  • Mark Seligman;Mike Dillinger

  • Affiliations:

  • Spoken Translation, Inc. Berkeley, CA;Spoken Translation, Inc. Berkeley, CA

  • Venue:
  • MST '06 Proceedings of the Workshop on Medical Speech Translation
  • Year:
  • 2006

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Abstract

We describe a highly interactive system for bidirectional, broad-coverage spoken language communication in the healthcare area. The paper briefly reviews the system's interactive foundations, and then goes on to discuss in greater depth issues of practical usability. We present our Translation Shortcuts facility, which minimizes the need for interactive verification of sentences after they have been vetted once, considerably speeds throughput while maintaining accuracy, and allows use by minimally literate patients for whom any mode of text entry might be difficult. We also discuss facilities for multimodal input, in which handwriting, touch screen, and keyboard interfaces are offered as alternatives to speech input when appropriate. In order to deal with issues related to sheer physical awkwardness, we briefly mention facilities for hands-free or eyes-free operation of the system. Finally, we point toward several directions for future improvement of the system.