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From: torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan Torrie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: De-macification of the Amiga (Re: The Amiga's Future)
Message-ID: <1991Jun30.173704.3116@neon.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 30 Jun 91 17:37:04 GMT
References: <14332@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <1991Jun30.015828.5393@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> <1991Jun30.083209.22027@neon.Stanford.EDU> <5393@dirac.physics.purdue.edu>
Sender: torrie@neon.Stanford.EDU (Evan James Torrie)
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University, Ca , USA
Lines: 59

sho@gibbs.physics.purdue.edu (Sho Kuwamoto) writes:

>torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan Torrie) writes:
>>  Well, how about a voice interface?  "Edit, Cut".

>* You will have problems in situations (like computer labs) where many
>  computers are close together.

  Yep, although there's a lot of work being done on directional
microphone technology, and filtering out speakers other than the user.

>* Voice commands force you to memorize the commands before using them.
>  This (to me) is the main benefit of using menus.  From Inside
>  Macintosh VI:

  I would suggest still having the menus, but being able to navigate
by voice, e.g. "Edit" - the Edit menu drops down, showing Undo, Cut, 
Copy Paste etc.  Then "Cut" chooses the Cut command.  Sort of like 
Word 4.0's keyboard menu walking.  You should also be able to use
voice for non-menu commands, such as palettes of tools, clicking and
dragging etc.  Since everyone is now writing their applications with
Apple Events for every one of their program's commands (:-)), it 
should be trivial to hook up a voice recognition system for a 
particular program.

>  
>  If you want to use voice commands IN ADDITION to menu commands, I
>  don't see how that improves the status quo.  In this case, we're not
>  talking about voice vs. menus... we're talking about voice vs.
>  keyboard shortcuts.  I don't know about you, but I'd rather hit a
>  key sequence than say, "cut."  I'm sure the person working on the
>  computer next to me feels the same way.

  Give the user the choice.  This is another one of those "medley"
situations.  Sometimes I might find speaking faster, sometimes I
might find using the mouse faster, and sometimes I might like to use
the keyboard.  It can't hurt to add another option (especially for those
who have limited options already [e.g. disabled users]).

>Voice commands might be useful one day in the future when natural
>language parsers, voice recognition, and other AI things (about which I
>have little knowledge) are more advanced.  If a businessman can ask the
>computer questions like:

>     "If we lay off 1500 employees and cut margins across the
>      product line by 5%, how would that affect our bottom line?"

  Hmmm.  I wonder whether Sculley used something like this :-)  

>and expect a reasonable answer, then *obviously* voice input will be
>natural and useful.  Until then...

  I think it can be very useful in the meantime,  (especially since what
you describe is still a long way off).

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Evan Torrie.  Stanford University, Class of 199?       torrie@cs.stanford.edu   
"Cold is God's way of telling us to burn more Catholics" - Lady Whiteadder