Citation: Blanco, T.; Martín-Segura,
S.; de Larrinzar, J.L.; Béjar, R.;
Zarazaga-Soria, F.J. First Steps
toward Voice User Interfaces for
Web-Based Navigation of Geographic
Information: A Spanish Terms Study.
Appl. Sci. 2023, 13, 2083. https://
doi.org/10.3390/app13042083
Academic Editor: Enrico Vezzetti
Received: 30 December 2022
Revised: 21 January 2023
Accepted: 23 January 2023
Published: 6 February 2023
Copyright: © 2023 by the authors.
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
This article is an open access article
distributed under the terms and
conditions of the Creative Commons
Attribution (CC BY) license (https://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/
4.0/).
Article
First Steps toward Voice User Interfaces for Web-Based
Navigation of Geographic Information: A Spanish Terms Study
Teresa Blanco
1,2
, Sergio Martín-Segura
3
, Juan López de Larrinzar
1
, Rubén Béjar
2,3
and Francisco Javier Zarazaga-Soria
2,3,
*
1
GeoSpatium Lab S.L., 50015 Zaragoza, Spain
2
Engineering Research Institute of Aragon (I3A), University of Zaragoza, 50018 Zaragoza, Spain
3
Department of Computer Science and System Engineering, University of Zaragoza, 50018 Zaragoza, Spain
* Correspondence: javy@unizar.es
Abstract:
This work presents the first steps toward developing specific technology for voice user
interfaces for geographic information systems. Despite having many general elements, such as
voice recognition libraries, the current technology still lacks the ability to fully understand and
process the semantics that real users apply to command geographic information systems. This paper
presents the results of three connected experiments, following a mixed-methods approach. The first
experiment focused on identifying the most common words used when working with maps in a web
browser. The second experiment developed an understanding of the chain of commands used for
map management for a specific objective. Finally, the third experiment involved the development of
a prototype to validate this understanding. Using data and fieldwork, we created a minimum corpus
of terms in Spanish. In addition, we identified the particularities of use and user profiles to consider
in a voice user interface for geographic information systems, involving the user’s proprioception
concerning the world and technology. These user profiles can be considered in future designs of
human–technology interaction products. All the data collected and the source code of the prototype
are provided as additional material, free to use and modify.
Keywords:
voice user interface; geographic information systems; human–computer interaction;
user-centered design; web accessibility; methodology; semantics
1. Introduction
Voice user interfaces (VUIs) allow voice interactions between devices and people.
These interfaces use speech recognition to perceive spoken commands and provide the
functionality associated with those commands. Most current VUIs operate under the
approach of smart, or intelligent, assistants: systems such as Siri, Cortana, Amazon Alexa,
Google Home, and Bixby are novel interfaces that can access various technological devices
that surround us, as predicted by Gartner [
1
]. All of this contributes to the new model
of comprehension, utilization, and interaction within the ambient intelligence paradigm,
where technology, although almost invisible, is more present than ever [
2
,
3
]. An intelligent
assistant provides a whole series of technological resources designed to take what we
request by voice and convert it into specific tasks. To do this, they employ powerful voice
recognition capabilities, then artificial intelligence systems enable them to interpret requests
and convert them into commands for our technological devices.
Although these assistants cover many scenarios and much content, related advanced
services are lacking in the field of geographic orientation, despite it being an environment
of early technology adoption. For instance, methods of user–computer interaction un-
derwent a revolution related to the introduction of graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and
their popularization by the Apple Macintosh in the early 1980s. Geographic information
systems (GISs) adopted them at an early stage for logical reasons (Figure 1). Now, even
Appl. Sci. 2023, 13, 2083. https://doi.org/10.3390/app13042083 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/applsci
