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Speaking Up About Voice Recognition Software
 

Dear Computer Dude, 

What do you think about the software called Dragon Speaking?  Does it really work, and do you think it's worth the money?

-Chuck

 

Dear Chuck,

Here we are in the fourth decade of home computers, and we're no closer to the Jetson-like ability to converse with our computers than we were in the days of Buck Rogers two-reelers.

Dragon has put a lot of money into their "Naturally Speaking" product, as have some other software vendors.  Unfortunately, in my opinion they've put way more into the marketing of that software than they have in the research itself over the last few years.

The result is that voice recognition software, which is theoretically intended to save time, actually winds up being a big waster of time.

For starters, the English language is imprecise, and a lot of words sound similar.  For example, the simple term "recognize speech" is just as likely to be interpreted by your computer as "wreck a nice beach." 

According to Landmark College, voice recognition software has an error rate of as high as 20 percent.  That means one in every five words is going to be wrong.  In my opinion, it is more time consuming to go back, find the misinterpreted words, then manually re-type them than it is to simply type the whole text in the first place.

And it's not just complicated phrases.  Human beings struggle every day with the proper usage of similar-sounding words like "to," "two," and "too," as well as "there," "their," and "they're."  Computers manage to get it wrong even more often than we do.

Another problem is the amount of time required for setup.  Most voice recognition programs require an extensive "auditioning" process where you have to read pre-selected scripts to the computer so it can figure out your speech patterns.  Sometimes it can take a couple of hours to make this happen.  Then, after that two hours, the thing still won't get it right on one out of five words.

The good news, and it's not really all that good, is that the software has dropped significantly in price.  What was once nearly a $150 package can now be purchased all over the place for about $60.  At that price, it might be worth picking up and trying; just don't get your hopes up that it's going to increase your productivity or make the job of dictation any easier.

My advice would be to take that $60 and invest it in a good Mavis Beacon Typing Tutor program, which should help ramp up your keyboard speed.

Until the computer and software industries renew their efforts to bring us "keyless entry" of data via voice, we're going to have to continue employing the 21st century equivalent of hooking up a team of horses to pull our Ferraris around the track.

*Computer Dude

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