Will voice replace typing?

I also know a few people that use text notes for various things, and they’d probably like to transcribe those reliably as well.

I dunno, I can’t see myself ever switching to voice. Even if a voice program worked perfectly, it would screw with my thought process too much for me to really use it for any kind of long form writing.

Hearing your own voice screws with your thoughts, huh?

Having our speech transcribed… might bring back the days of dictation! Without the young girls in the corner typing furiously :slight_smile:

Voice recognition isn’t that good yet. But yeah it mostly will someday. Even your mind will be a factor - though mind reading technology certainly isn’t good yet either…

It could happen in the future. It would be far better if there were a common global language which would be phonetic like Bulgarian. So words are written as they are pronounced. A big step but who knows? IT is making the world a smaller place and English is a far from logical language to use so why not start with a clean sheet rather than languages that have evolved?

I’am typing much faster, than I speak. So it’s pretty useless even if voice recognition will be good someday.
Also see this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyLqUf4cdwc
Poor guy trying to write perl script by voice)

I don’t know, i am not very comfortable with the idea of completely doing away with typing and replacing it with voice. Some things are best typed or written. It’s almost shocking how typing has replaced writing. All i use a pen now is for signing. :stuck_out_tongue:

I can see it happen in a near future. But I don’t think that typing will ever fully die. Actually, sometimes it’s way comfortable to type smth than say smth.

In reply to the original OP question - No, I don’t think it will, I think it will become part of the future but won’t take it over. I think Virtual Reality style movements to react to certain things is the future so there will be no contact with any part of the body to a device.

I disagree actually, though who knows where kinect-style technology will take us, and how it may help people who can only make gross motor movements get improved computer interaction.

Mostly it’s when we see films like… damn, forgot the name, but it was a Michael Crichton book-turned-film with Michael Douglas Disclosure, who at some point had to use a demo/testing version of a virtual file system with VR glasses and a dataglove. So he was waving his hand around swiping file folders around. And I wondered who would really want to do that for hours on end (assuming you work with computers regularly, like secretaries, programmers, bankers…). Two problems: large sweeping movements cost way more energy than things we do today like using keyboards, mice, touchscreens or even voice (like Dragon Naturally Speaking or Siri).
Second problem is, humans like feedback, and if they are using their hands they want tactile feedback. Waving your arms around with a dataglove or even dragging your finger along a glass pane with glowing lines on it is low-level, unnuanced feedback (unless detailed feedback is specifically added to the glass pane or dataglove… not much reason it couldn’t be).

I’ll link to a rant I came across a while back. I don’t agree with him 100% but he makes a lot of good points: http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesign/

Nielsen’s old rant about stuff shown in films, particularly #3: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/film-ui-bloopers.html
He makes some good points, though I won’t believe that things used the most that people say they’re comfortable with are always the best methods. Sometimes it’s just what we have and are used to, or it’s fashion.

If there is no contact with the device, there is a reliance on higher-order perception (vision, hearing) to get feedback. Did I activate the right thing? What is available to me? Am I close enough? Did that thing close? I think ideally, faster and more intuitive UIs will rely more and more on touch, vibration, size, pressure, and maybe even temperature changes. Though anyone who’s used a touchscreen phone in the cold wearing gloves, or even trying to type in gloves in a cold office, knows there are strong limitations with touch :slight_smile:

Still there are some voice recognizers which will recognize voices and prints the text. But they are not available for all users now.

The only problem I could see with doing away with typing is that in an office full of programmers or admins or any other heavy computer users, it would be extremely annoying and loud. I’m sure it will become more widely used, but I think there will always be a discrete way of interacting with hardware.

Christmas on a cracker I hope not.

I find printed text a billion times clearer and easier than voice; you can go back and re-read it, if a section sucks it’s easier to skip past it, in terms of delivering content text is – for me at least – far, FAR superior. Probably why I hate podcasts and/or video tutorials; when people send me links to them I go "where the {expletive omitted} is the transcript? I was actually shocked in another thread where someone asked about video tutorials and people love them – I can’t even use them without either falling asleep or getting pissed off.

Much less for all the talk of voice control – it has not seen a major functionality improvement since 1993. Every four to five years some company dumps a product on the market that they ‘claim’ works, and they’re pretty much just as useless as it was under windows 3.1; you have to train it, doesn’t know half your vocabulary assuming it actually recognizes more than a few dozen words… text to speech is still in the dark ages; speech to text? Uselessly pathetic.

I actually HAD voice control under Windows 3.1 – it worked, to be frank… about as well as todays phones.

Which is to say not worth a flying purple fish.

But what do I know, I can type about three times faster than I can talk… and have been a speed reader since I was ten.

I haven’t had much to say in this thread, but on reading this, I agree completely. Everything from sales calls to the gigs of stand-up comedians is scripted and those scripts are in writing for a reason. Even the POTUS uses a teleprompter to make sure he says what he wants to say. The day that voice replaces typing will be the day that information becomes a bunch of gobbledygook.

How many of you who profess to be writers can put what’s in your head on paper without editing it as you type it? Recently I read an article (wish I could remember where) that was about how difficult it is to put one’s thoughts into words. The mind works a whole lot faster than the mouth can and before you can “speak a thought” it probably has had a dozen (or more) new thoughts.

Additionally, how many times have you faltered at finding the word that was on the “tip of your tongue” but “you couldn’t spit it out”. Typing gives you the leeway to organize your thoughts in a way that voice never will and the ability to leave a blank spot if you need to and find that word you’ve swallowed instead of spoke.

that’s not a distinction between voice and typing, it’s simply a matter of being able to take your time in composing your thoughts

typing makes it easy to pause, do some research, choose the most effective phrase. and edit if required

voice is presentation

typing is html, voice is css

Dictation exists for a reason. And we don’t use IRC for meetings, court cases, or interviews most of the time, while later a text version is generally available. Stenographers, don’t worry: your jobs are not disappearing yet!

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I believe you need high accuracy but that is not very feasible when you are doing it with software. Dragon is the most commonly used but cant be taken for professional purposes. There are services available <snip/>