Improving Navigation in Touch-Tone Interfaces

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Abstract

In this paper we describe a system we have developed for improving navigation in touch-tone applications by personalizing the menu interface. Telephony applications rely heavily on hierarchically structured menus (or prompts) for creating a dialog between the user and the information being retrieved. The highly hierarchical structure to the method of retrieving information in touch-tone interfaces reduces the efficiency of navigating the various menu layers. The system we describe in this paper allows users to bookmark any given node in the menu-based system. Bookmarks provide a method for bypassing the entire hierarchy structure to access only that node of interest in the menu tree. By means of our approach, users can access personalized information more efficiently and without spending time listening to prompts before making decisions. Participants of a user evaluation expressed highly positive attitudes toward the touch-tone interface we implemented as it enables them to rapidly access nodes of interest, particularly items that are frequently retrieved.

Citation

Peer Shajahan and Pourang Irani. 2003. Improving Navigation in Touch-Tone Interfaces. In Proceedings from Human Factors in Telecommunication (HFT '03), 8.

Bibtext Entry

@INPROCEEDINGS { shajahan03,
    AUTHOR = { Peer Shajahan and Pourang Irani },
    TITLE = { Improving Navigation in Touch-Tone Interfaces },
    BOOKTITLE = { Proceedings from Human Factors in Telecommunication (HFT '03) },
    YEAR = { 2003 },
    PAGES = { 8 },
    DOI = { },
}