The technical objective of this project is concerned with assessing the usability of voice processing software in automated banking using the telephone ('direct banking').

The purpose of OVID is to bring together international banking partners and technology providers for a trial application of a European automated telephone banking using voice processing. The specific application will comprise a telephone banking service that allows customers to telephone the automated service and enquire about their bank balance and recent activity on their account, to pay bills and transfer funds. The trial application will allow the banks to assess the levels of increased sales and improved productivity that would be possible from the full software implementation. In addition the trial will support assessment of improvements in the ease of use from such automated services, and finally the problems of cross-border operation. The partners intend to approach the work via a series of controlled usability trials of the software in a realistic banking service with real bank customers. The results will be an assessment of how bank customers are able to use the automated service without training and how to design an optimal user interface dialogue which can accommodate the untrained user. In addition, the results will enable the banks to report on the potential added service benefits from such applications. The expected impact of the trial application will be to make automated banking more user friendly and easier to use since voice is one of the most natural interface modes for public access to any service.

At present, the question to be answered by the banks is the extent to which recent leading edge advances in the capabilities of speech recognition and understanding are ready to solve their applications needs. OVID seeks to carry out a user-centred trial of the application needs in terms of acceptability and usability of speech processing software in interactive voice response banking systems. An extended series of user trials of near market automated banking services is included as part of the project workplan and the results of these trials will have wider application in voice driven information services allowing the results of this trial application to be redeployed in services such as timetable services or entertainment services for access by the general public.