System and dialog manager developed using modular spoken-dialog components

Abstract

A dialog manager and spoken dialog service having a dialog manager generated according to a method comprising selecting a top level flow controller based on application type, selecting available reusable subdialogs for each application part, developing a subdialog for each application part not having an available subdialog and testing and deploying the spoken dialog service using the selected top level flow controller, selected reusable subdialogs and developed subdialogs. The dialog manager capable of handling context shifts in a spoken dialog with a user. Application dependencies are established in the top level flow controller thus enabling the subdialogs to be reusable and to be capable of managing context shifts and mixed initiative dialogs.

We claim: 
     
         1 . A method comprising:
 isolating, during a dialog between a user and a spoken dialog system and when a context shift occurs in the dialog, a subdialog component handling the dialog from an application dependency;   indicating via the subdialog component the context shift; and   transferring control of the dialog from the subdialog component to one of: a dialog module or a second subdialog component.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the transferring of control further comprises avoiding continuing the dialog along a pre-determined dialog path at a time of the transferring. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the application dependency comprises one of:
 a specific piece of information provided by an application and information associated with a website.   
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 3 , wherein the specific piece of information comprises data about a product. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 4 , wherein the specific piece of information comprises further data about sales of the product. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the subdialog component and the second subdialog component comprise different types of subdialog components. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 6 , wherein the different types of subdialog components comprise at least one of a recursive transition network and a rule-based system. 
     
     
         8 . A system comprising:
 a processor; and   a computer-readable storage device having instructions stored which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:
 isolating, during a dialog between a user and a spoken dialog system and when a context shift occurs in the dialog, a subdialog component handling the dialog from an application dependency; 
 indicating via the subdialog component the context shift; and 
 transferring control of the dialog from the subdialog component to one of: a dialog module or a second subdialog component. 
   
     
     
         9 . The system of  claim 8 , wherein the transferring of control further comprises avoiding continuing the dialog along a pre-determined dialog path at a time of the transferring. 
     
     
         10 . The system of  claim 8 , wherein the application dependency comprises one of: a specific piece of information provided by an application and information associated with a website. 
     
     
         11 . The system of  claim 10 , wherein the specific piece of information comprises data about a product. 
     
     
         12 . The system of  claim 11 , wherein the specific piece of information comprises further data about sales of the product. 
     
     
         13 . The system of  claim 8 , wherein the subdialog component and the second subdialog component comprise different types of subdialog components. 
     
     
         14 . The system of  claim 13 , wherein the different types of subdialog components comprise at least one of a recursive transition network and a rule-based system. 
     
     
         15 . A computer-readable storage device having instructions stored which, when executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform operations comprising:
 isolating, during a dialog between a user and a spoken dialog system and when a context shift occurs in the dialog, a subdialog component handling the dialog from an application dependency;   indicating via the subdialog component the context shift; and   transferring control of the dialog from the subdialog component to one of: a dialog module or a second subdialog component.   
     
     
         16 . The computer-readable storage device of  claim 15 , wherein the transferring of control further comprises avoiding continuing the dialog along a pre-determined dialog path at a time of the transferring. 
     
     
         17 . The computer-readable storage device of  claim 15 , wherein the application dependency comprises one of: a specific piece of information provided by an application and information associated with a website. 
     
     
         18 . The computer-readable storage device of  claim 17 , wherein the specific piece of information comprises data about a product. 
     
     
         19 . The computer-readable storage device of  claim 18  wherein the specific piece of information comprises further data about sales of the product. 
     
     
         20 . The computer-readable storage device of  claim 15 , wherein the subdialog component and the second subdialog component comprise different types of subdialog components.