The MUST guide to Paris: Implementation and expert evaluation of a multimodal tourist guide to Paris

In this paper we present the implementation and expert evaluation of a speech centric multimodal demonstrator that has been developed in the EURESCOM MUST project (MUltimodal, multilingual information Services for small mobile Terminals). The demonstrator is a tourist guide for Paris. The paper focuses on the technical implementation and interface design of the demonstrator. Based on GALAXY Communicator software, Telenor and Portugal Telecom were able to build transparent, modular, and stable versions of the demonstrator in a relatively short time. User Interface experts at Telenor and Portugal Telecom evaluated the demonstrator in two phases. In phase one they explored the interface. Phase two was a Cognitive Walkthrough with predefined tasks and action sequences. It appeared that it was not obvious that the interface was multimodal, and in particular that it was possible to tap and talk simultaneously. However, some experts discovered simultaneous multimodal interaction after a while, and we observed a very steep learning curve. The experts foresee problems for naive users, if no special attention is paid to the introduction phase. The implications of the expert evaluation for the planned user tests are discussed at the end of the paper.