There's nowt so queer as folk!

People just cannot stop being people when they communicate with machines. T his is never more true than when they are using spoken language to do so. C urrent telephone interactive voice technology uses recorded prompts and sim ple menus to allow callers to use the telephone keypad (TouchTone) to acces s services. Within this highly structured approach, care still needs to be taken when designing the interface for human behaviour. The technology to enable people to use spoken language to talk with machine s is maturing rapidly. As it does, more natural interfaces that emulate ord inary human-human conversation are emerging. As the interfaces become more like people, the behaviours and expectations of those interacting with the machine also become richer. This presents a real design challenge that must be addressed This paper discusses the different generations of spoken dial ogue technologies and discusses how human characteristics must be taken int o account with each successive step toward natural conversation.