Patent ID: 7324947

Claim:
A computer readable storage medium encoded with instructions, which when loaded into a communications system establishes a global speech user interface (GSUI), said GSUI comprising: means for performing speech recognition to transcribe spoken commands into commands acceptable by said communications system; means for using the transcribed spoken commands to navigate among applications hosted on said communications system; and means for displaying a set of visual cues to guide a user in issuing proper spoken commands, said visual cues comprising: a set of immediate speech feedback overlays, each of which provides non-textual feedback information about a state of said communications system; a set of help overlays, each of which provides a context-sensitive list of frequently used speech-activated commands for each screen of every speech-activated application; a set of feedback overlays, each of which provides information about a problem that said communications system is experiencing; and a main menu overlay that shows a list of services available to the user, each of said services being accessible by spoken command.