Conversational Computer Systems
MIT OpenCourseWare's Media Arts and Sciences course examines how people interact with mobile devices and telephones through voice rather than screens. Topics cover speech production and perception, speech recognition and text-to-speech algorithms, telephone network constraints, and techniques like spatial audio and time-compressed listening for browsing recorded speech. The course emphasizes human interface design choices suited to the cognitive demands of listening rather than reading, drawing on extensive current research literature rather than a single textbook. Materials include readings and discussion of design case studies for voice interfaces. It suits students interested in human-computer interaction, speech technology, or accessible interface design, and assumes some background in computer systems given its advanced level. No tuition or fees apply to accessing the course materials, following MIT OCW's standard open publishing model, with no certificate offered.