Speech Application Architecture

Interactive Voice Response (IVR) applications are accessed in different ways, depending upon the type of client used. A Speech Server application is composed of a set of ASP.NET pages which contain either a combination of HTML and Speech Application Language Tags (SALT) or SALT alone. The SALT tags are interpreted either on the server or on the client, depending upon how the application is accessed. In the example shown, the application (bottom) is being accessed by a voice-only client (a telephone), a desktop client, and a Pocket PC client.

When the application is accessed via a telephone, the Telephony Application Services (a component of Speech Server) act as an intermediary, interpreting the SALT tags and using the Speech Engine Services to perform all text-to-speech (TTS) and speech recognition (SR) functions.

The application can also be accessed via a desktop PC with a new Speech Add-In for Internet Explorer installed. In this case, the SALT tags are interpreted on the client and the client performs the TTS and SR functions.