System and method for voice-directed website walk-through

Abstract

A system and method for a user to receive voice prompts and to talk to a website stating what they desire to do. Speech-to-text (speech recognition) and text-to-speech or pre-recorded voice along with graphic overlay provide user guidance. Upon accessing a website, special code is transferred to the client browser from the site server. If the client computer's application interface supports speech recognition and/or text to speech, some or all speech conversions can be performed on the client side. If not, the speech processing can be performed on a dedicated private control site or by an external site that provides speech processing services, or as a distributed service in an on premise installation. After speech is converted to text, an artificial intelligence module, attempts to determine intent. Once intent is determined, correct commands can be sent to the website to bring up proper pages and/or walkthroughs and/or answers.

We claim: 
     
         1 . A method for providing voice-controlled website walk-through comprising:
 providing a voice prompt to a user upon entering the website using text to voice conversion or a recorded voice prompt;   receiving a voice request from the user;   converting the voice request to text using voice recognition;   determining intent from the text;   from intent, either asking the user a question, or presenting a particular webpage to the user.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1  wherein voice recognition and text-to-voice conversion is performed on the user's computer. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1  wherein voice recognition and text-to-voice conversion is performed at a website server. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1  wherein voice recognition and text-to-voice conversion is performed on a third party computer. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1  wherein determining intent includes asking the user one or more questions using the voice prompt, receiving verbal answers to the questions, converting the verbal answers to response text for analysis. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1  wherein determining intent includes processing of the text by an artificial intelligence module. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 5  wherein determining intent includes processing the response text with an artificial intelligence module. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 6  wherein the artificial intelligence module includes dictionaries of words, a neural network or an expert system. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 7  wherein the artificial intelligence module includes dictionaries of words, a neural network or an expert system.