Speech is incorporated together with other interface elements in information presentation (fusion) and collecting information (fission). The appropriate combination of speech, text, and graphics will critically depend on the comfort level of the user. Complexity needs to be matched to user skills. Two related strands are
A virtual personal assistant, which allows the user to browse, sort, process and respond to emails, organize calendar events, etc is being developed within a European consortium (the FASiL project). Interface is primarily through relatively unconstrained spoken language. Our role is to examine the appropriate fission/fusion models and to allow the interface to adapt to user skills and needs, and
Similar interface issues arise in the context of IT users who are technologically naive or illiterate. Interfaces for portable computing devices in developing nations need to be sensitive to user skills and adapt approp(riately). Adaptive Speech Interfaces Dept. of Computer Science University College Dublin
