Importance

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Abstract

Management of speech and audio prompts, and interface presence, in multimodal user interfaces is provided. A communications device having a multimodal user interface including a speech interface, and a non-speech interface, e.g. a graphical or tactile user interface, comprises means for dynamically switching between a background state of the speech interface and a foreground state of the speech interface in accordance with a users input modality choice. Preferably, in the foreground state speech prompts and speech based error recovery are fully implemented and in a background state speech prompts are replaced by earcons, and no speech based error recovery is implemented. Thus there is provided a device which automatically subdue the speech prompts when a user selects a non-speech input/output mechanism. Also provided is a method for dynamic adjustment of audio prompts and speech prompts by switching from a foreground state to a background state of a speech interface in response to a users current interaction modality, by selecting alternative states for speech and audio interfaces that represent users needs for speech prompts. This type of system and method is particularly useful and applicable to hand held Internet access communication devices.

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First Claim