VoiceXML is a language for creating voice-user interfaces, particularly for the telephone. It uses speech recognition and touchtone (DTMF keypad) for input, and pre-recorded audio and text-to-speech synthesis (TTS) for output. It is based on the Worldwide Web Consortium’s (W3C’s) Extensible Markup Language (XML), and leverages the web paradigm for application development and deployment. By having a common language, application developers, platform vendors, and tool providers all can benefit from code portability and reuse.

With VoiceXML, speech recognition application development is greatly simplified by using familiar web infrastructure, including tools and Web servers. Instead of using a PC with a Web browser, any telephone can access VoiceXML applications via a VoiceXML “interpreter” (also known as a “browser”) running on a telephony server. Whereas HTML is commonly used for creating graphical Web applications, VoiceXML can be used for voice-enabled Web applications.

Def. Kenneth G. Rehor @ www.voicexmlforum.org | www.voicexmlreview.org