speech input revisited

Posted by Gary Carson
Jan 27, 2013 at 03:46 PM

I’ve been using dictation for years and I’m trying to get to the point where I do all of my work or most of it anyway by voice. I’m dictating this right now, for example, using Dragon NaturallySpeaking version 10 and a Samson Airline 77 wireless headset microphone.

Anyway, dictation has its advantages and disadvantages. Its biggest advantage, like you said, is that it is the fastest way to capture information available right now. I carry a voice recorder around with me everywhere I go these days and I use it to dictate memos, task lists, contact information, brainstorming sessions, rough drafts for both fiction and nonfiction, outlines, the list goes on and on. I dictate while I’m driving around as well, using a headset microphone. Dictating with a voice recorder is so mobile that you can do it just about anywhere.

The disadvantage of using dictation is that audio files are linear. You can’t skip around in an audio file as easily as you can visually scan through a document. Also, as far as I know, there is no way to search an audio file for a specific spoken word or phrase. You can insert index marks into audio files to mark your position, but if you don’t know what you’re likely to need to look up later on, you probably won’t think to index that particular information. The best way to search an audio file is to transcribe it and then search the document.

I’m still on Dragon NaturallySpeaking version 10 (premium), but apparently there is a way to do batch processing of files with the version 12 premium edition IF you’re using one of the Olympus professional grade recorders like the new DS 7000. If you’re really serious about getting into dictation, you should get one of these professional recorders. They’re expensive, but well worth it, and they’re the only recorders that offer a full range of editing functions like insert and append.

Using Dragon NaturallySpeaking, you should be able to get around 98% accuracy with your voice recorder transcripts (after training a dedicated recorder profile.) You’ll need to get at least the premium version of Dragon to transcribe dictation made with a recorder. If your accuracy is much lower than 98%, then there’s something wrong either with your hardware or your software or your dictation technique. 98% is about as good as you can expect, though it is possible to get close to 100% sometimes—anything higher than 98% is mostly a function of how clearly you can dictate.

As for getting dictated information into a personal information manager of some kind, really the only way to do this is to transcribe the dictation first and then simply move it into the PIM. I found, however, that I never really need to transcribe at least 50% of the dictation that I do everyday. I just leave it on the recorder and play it back. For example, I record daily task lists, adding things that I need to do or want to remember as I go through the day, then I’ll play the recording back the next morning while I’m shaving and getting washed up. It works pretty well.

Dictation requires a certain amount of administration. There’s no way to avoid it. One thing I’ve found is that I can manually transcribe a lot of the dictation I do. For example, I try to keep my daily task lists down to a reasonable length. Once they start getting over five or six minutes long, I’ll play them back and transcribe them manually using either a pen and notebook or my laptop. Then I’ll zap the original list and record it over again, getting rid of all the tasks that I’ve completed. Also, I’ve learned to use a kind of verbal shorthand when I’m dictating stuff like this. The lists are really just memory cues. I try to keep them as short and to the point as possible.

Man, I have been going on and on here (something that’s easy to do with dictation.) Anyway, I would really recommend using dictation as much as you can. It’s minimalistic and fast and mobile. A real timesaver.