pdf: 600KB - Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research

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Example 2: Generating audio descriptions of model structure using VoiceXML
This example shows the potential for presenting models in novel ways, once the step has been
taken to represent models in XML.
As mentioned previously, XML is the basis for a very large number of markup languages (see
http://www.coverpages.org/xmlApplications.html ). One of these, VoiceXML, is for marking up
text so that it can be delivered by telephone, though the sort of automated answering systems that
irritate us when we are trying to talk to a real person in some organisation. However, for people
with impaired vision, this technology has huge potential, whether delivered by phone or through a
computer loudspeaker.
The following text is an actual VoiceXML document, with some extraneous bits removed and
formatted to make its structure clearer. The bits in bold are text that is spoken by the computersynthesised
voice: the underlined parts are generated for a specific model. When users phone
through to a voice portal service, they will be asked to say one of the words "top", "patch", "crop"
or "water", and you will then get a brief description of the relevant part of the model.
Welcome to the Simile VoiceXML demonstration.
Description of the spatial crop model.
The model contains 4 submodels: top, patch, crop, water,
Please say: top, patch, crop, water,
You have selected
The submodel top contains the 3 variables temperature, total
harvest, rain,
The submodel water contains
the 1 compartments water ,
the 3 variables var9, biomass, rain,
the 3 flows rain, transpiration, drainage,