Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Baseline: 50/50 voice/hands

This is hardly a scientific measurement, but from what I can tell I currently use speech recognition software for 50% of my computing, and the (damn) keyboard & mouse for the rest. I guess this is an accomplishment considering 18 months ago I was 20% voice/80% hands.

When I first started using Dragon NaturallySpeaking in 2002 I had completely unrealistic expectations about the product & how long it would take to learn how to use it! I think my first serious efforts towards hands-free computing started in early 2006, so I've been a real/hard-core/serious voice user for just over two years at this point. Rumor has it takes visually impaired users up to three years to be expert level users of programs like JAWS. I just assumed with the cute 100 page mini-manual for Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9 I should have become an expert user over a weekend, rats.

My goal is to be 90% voice/10% hands by the end of 2008. And the purpose of this blog is to help me focus on this goal and document my progress!

1 comment:

reddot said...

hi Molly,

I don't know if this is along the lines of what you had in mind, but as a beginning user of speech recognition on that desktop computer, what would really be helpful for me would be to learn any tips and tricks that you might have. Or, at least recommend some places that you trust about such things. A lot of people on the various forums out there don't seem to know what they're talking about.

Todd