WHEELS: a conversational system in the automobile classifieds domain

WHEELS is a conversational system which provides access to a database of electronic automobile classified advertisements. It leverages off the existing spoken language technologies from our GALAXY system, and enables users to search through a database of 5,000 automobile classifieds. The current end-to-end system can respond to spoken or typed inputs, and produces a short list of entries meeting the constraints specified by the user. The system operates in mixed-initiative mode, asking for specific information but not requiring compliance. The output information is conveyed to the user with visual tables and synthesized speech. This system incorporates a new type of category bigram, created with the innovative use of the natural language component. Future plans to extend the system include operating in a displayless mode, and porting the system to Spanish.