karlkarl,
Speech sucks as an interface, in my opinion. I’d much rather use text, and I’ve got 5% vision. I’m literally choosing physical pain over the pain in the arse that is using a screen reader. That’s pain from wearing heavy 5x magnification telescopes on my glasses that hurt my nose and pull on my ears, and staring at a bright screen when the cause of my eye condition is sensitivity to light.
Speech is slower than reading. Though many blind users get so good at it that they can run their screen readers at double or triple speed to compensate. It also requires extra concentration. It’s much easier for the mind to wander and miss a vital word, with text you just scan back a few words and carry on. With voice, you’ve got to rewind, remember where you are, reset your train of thought and start again.
When vision is difficult you learn to adapt. You use your memory more to avoid the hassle of having to keep looking at things. When most people can just glance at it and remind themselves. You try to memorise user interfaces and menus. Imagine with a screen reader every time you open a menu, it’s going to read the whole bloody thing at you! Unless you stop it, or learn the keyboard shortcuts. Does anyone like those bloody awful automatic menu systems that call centres use? No, because it’s a UI that strains our memory and concentration. And often confuses.
But with practise, you can get good at it. Particularly if you have little choice...
Practical example. I looked at setting up a company importing better, mostly US, kit for people with visual impairments. Because we have a lot of government support here, we tend to get what we’re given, not what’s actually good. My NHS reading glasses are held together with tape or glue, due to a design flaw that's been on every pair the hospital have given me since 1978. I’ve bought my own before, but at £800-£1,000 a pop, it’s not cheap. And because the competition is free "good enough", it’s hard to persuade people into the market, and hard to guarantee you can get spares later.
This company had built a dedicated talking sat nav. It was brilliant. But imagine how many sub menus you use when setting your destination and requirements. You needed to be an IT genius with the memory of an elephant to use it. And it didn’t sell well. Their next unit was basically a talking map. Press location button, it tells you where you are. Press save button, it remembers where you are, and can direct you back there. You could program in 5 saved locations from a PC and get directions to those. Or if on a bus, you could get it to describe your journey, so you knew where to get off. Less flexible, less powerful, but also much more user-friendly, it sold well. The trick is often to find the tool that does the job least badly, or most conveniently. Oh, and with practise you can get used to most things.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
