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3.2. Description of the main stages of development
3.2.1. Specifying the system's task and roles
An MMD system is usually used to help the user in a given task, whether
it is train ticket reservations (closed domain) or general information (open
domain). The system thus has the role of managing the dialogue along a path
that should quickly lead to the task's completion.
Compared to an MMI or a classic Website, an MMD system gives the user
the freedom to express himself/herself as he/she wishes, and calls him/her in a
natural dialogue in natural language without having overstrict guidelines. The
system's role is thus to manage the dialogue with the specificities of human
language and dialogue.
Are these two roles compatible? Human dialogue studies have identified a
certain number of aspects to cover the dialogue's natural aspects, 7 for
J. Sinclair, 9 for Warren [WAR 06], or even 10 according to Clark [CLA 96].
These aspects highlight the fact that the dialogue is interactive, cooperative
and consistent to the point of sometimes being predictable, and that its
success relies on the two interlocutors. Clark criteria [CLA 96, p. 9] include
the following: copresence of the participants in the same physical
environment, visibility, audibility, interaction instantaneity, evanescence (the
utterances are fleeting, as well as the interlocutor's actions), and also
simultaneity and the real-time aspects of the interaction (the interlocutors can
process and generate at the same time). These criteria provide great principles
on natural dialogue, both on the interaction conditions and the dialogue's
progression. By underlining cooperative aspects, an MMD is thus seen as a
partner rather than a tool, and we can deduce that the task's resolution is a
joint activity between the two interlocutors and not controlled by the system.
However, a task such as a train ticket reservation follows structured
principles. The system needs to know a precise set of information: the
departure station, the arrival station, the date, the times, the class (first or
second) and various other preferences. More than that, the order in which this
information is given by the user follows certain principles, as Luzzati
[LUZ 95, p. 91] shows: “a time slot request which does not indicate the
arrival station and departure station is inconceivable, whereas it can be
considered without any time reference: everyone knows that you should
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