I work with a number of people with disabilities who actually use Dragon Dictate and Dragon Naturally Speaking, and some of you who have some experience with this will understand that the technology is imperfect at best.
If you've never seen this in action, you should know that the software must be trained by each user. It's a rather painstaking process, but it's worth it for people who have physical impairments that limit their options. Even after customizing it for your voice, dictating letters with this software is an exercise in extreme patience. I resist entering one co-worker's office when she's drafting a letter or e-mail or some other document, because she has to say "go to sleep" before we can carry on a discussion. And even though the software has "learned" her accent and vocal inflections, she's constantly having to back it up to correct the spelling of an uncommon word or name. I would call her an expert user, and she still says, "Dragon Dictate sucks!" Having seen quite a few people struggle with this, I think current voice recognition software is sufficient for very discreet purposes where you have a limited command set. A cell phone or address book will have a finite number of stored contact names, for example. I don't know how this would work for a TV or car stereo, as it seems to me the sound of the device itself would interfere with the command reception. For people who need it to get any work done on a computer, it's worth the hassle. But probably not for anyone else. I believe that anyone who can improve this will reap some very good karma. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=29005 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
