The economics of natural language interfaces: natural language processing technology as a scarce resource

This paper discusses appropriate application areas for natural language interfaces (NLIs) to databases. This requires comparing NLIs with competing approaches, including other user-friendly interfaces, and training of users with less user-friendly interfaces. Also, since NLI technology is still limi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inDecision Support Systems Vol. 38; no. 1; pp. 141 - 159
Main Authors Conlon, Sumali J., Conlon, John R., James, Tabitha L.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 01.10.2004
Elsevier Sequoia S.A
Subjects
Data base management systems
Database management systems
Economics of information systems
Information systems
Languages
Mathematical models
Natural language
Natural language interfaces
Network externalities
Studies
User interface
Database management systems
Economics of information systems
Network externalities
Natural language interfaces
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Summary:This paper discusses appropriate application areas for natural language interfaces (NLIs) to databases. This requires comparing NLIs with competing approaches, including other user-friendly interfaces, and training of users with less user-friendly interfaces. Also, since NLI technology is still limited, users may need to learn how to use NLIs themselves. This suggests that NLI popularity may snowball at some point, as users become familiar with NLIs. We use a simple prototype NLI to illustrate when NLIs can achieve flexibility unattainable by simpler interfaces. Currently existing commercial NLIs and application-specific customization are also discussed.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
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ISSN:0167-9236
1873-5797
DOI:10.1016/S0167-9236(03)00096-4