A multi-modal dialog system for business transactions

Abstract

This paper presents a general framework for conversational agents for business applications that supports multi-channel, multi-modal interactions through the use of a channel and modality independent Dialog Move Markup Language. In particular, we describe a prototype system as an instantiation of a general dialog architecture that supports web-based interaction through a combination of modalities such as natural language dialog and user interface components. User studies have revealed that the prototype system has enhanced user experience in an online shopping environment by significantly reducing the length of interactions in terms of time and the number of clicks. Furthermore, the success in extending the general architecture to a prototype system demonstrates the applicability and potentiality of such framework in business applications.