What is grammar “tuning”?
A voice application, like any user-centric application, is prone to certain problems that may only be discovered through formal usability testing, or observation of the application in use. Poor speech recognition accuracy is one type of problem common to voice applications, and a problem most often caused by poor grammar implementation. When users mispronounce words or say things unexpected by the grammar designer, the recognizer cannot match their input against the grammar. Poorly designed grammars containing many difficult-to-distinguish entries will also result in many misrecognized inputs. Grammar tuning is the process of improving recognition accuracy by modifying a grammar based on an analysis of its performance. Tuning is often performed during an iterative process of usability testing and application improvement and may involve amending the grammar with commonly spoken phrases, removing highly confusable words, and adding additional ways that callers may pronounce a word.
