Dragon voice recognition software: friend or foe?

December 21, 2009 8:53 AM

Is it a good idea to buy Dragon voice-recognition software to help write articles?

I'm writing my dissertation (along with a slew of other articles, emails, and so on) and, although I'm a decent typer (no idea how many wpm, but somewhere in the low-middle average I'd guess), I wonder if the Dragon software I saw yesterday at Staples would be a good choice or a big pain.

I have tons of fieldnotes which I could dictate rather than type, plus I'm back-logged on emails and fantasize about dictating responses with my feet raised on my desk, reclining back. Is this a totally naive fantasy?

Curious about your experience with the new Dragon software.
I'm running Windows7.

Thanks!

posted by mateuslee to Technology (8 answers total)

In my experience, which is totally limited to say, maybe an hour total, the built in voice recognition in Word 2003 was pretty decent. I'd imagine it might be better in 07.

You might give those a whirl.

Here in the office we have a USB voice recorder that has been used, in the past, to record meetings and then transcribe them to text via any given voice recognition app.
posted by TomMelee at 9:07 AM on December 21, 2009

My day job involves working as an Assistive Technology Specialist and I have been a Dragon NaturallySpeaking user for about 10 years.

Bottom line is you are not going to be able to start dictating right away at speeds faster than typing (unless you really can't type) but you stated you can type. The initial process with Dragon NaturallySpeaking can be a bit frustrating for new users as it does make mistakes (does depend on voice quality/noise in surrounding environment).

Dragon is a great program and I highly recommend it but it is a program that gets better the more you spend time with it. If you don't take the time to make corrections in dictation it will only make it difficult to use.

My suggestion would be to try the built in Speech Recognition in Windows 7 as it has greatly improved and started being a real competitor to Dragon when Vista came out.

Here is a link to the Microsoft website on how to setup Voice Recognition in Windows 7:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/features/speech-recognition.aspx
posted by randomthoughts at 9:24 AM on December 21, 2009

We got the Dragon Naturally Speaking for Mr. chocolate and he likes it. He used it to get through school, after being laid off from his job. He is a horrible, awful typist. Really, really bad. Part of that is laziness and part is that he has a little finger that was injured by a hand-grenade in Vietnam. I am not making this up.

But it does take some training both of you and the software. I have a co-worker who uses it just as you fantasize, but I don't think it is any faster than a slow typist. The program has to learn your voice and intonations and still will make mistakes.

I would give the Microsoft voice recognition first, but if you do get the Dragon program, it isn't bad.
posted by chocolatetiara at 9:44 AM on December 21, 2009

I know a handful of people who dictate at 200 wpm with Dragon. If you don't have an impeccable diction it will be slower.

It will work particularly well for dictating field notes, since you will not be too concerned with correcting the occasional mistake Dragon makes.
posted by gmarceau at 12:41 PM on December 21, 2009

Love it for field notes and transcribing interviews. Less useful for actual writing.
posted by singingfish at 3:01 PM on December 21, 2009

Fwiw, my mother swears by Dragon, and has done since writing her own dissertation ca. 2003. She has stressed, though, that you must work with it for a good bit of time while it gets used to your speech patterns, as everyone here has said above.
posted by AthenaPolias at 3:46 PM on December 21, 2009

iPhone has a Dragon app that is pretty cool and worked much better than I expected. You might give it a shot at the Mac store on a demo to get an idea of how lucky you might be on the full app. I had it on my laptop back in the early days and it did take patience...
posted by bkeene12 at 7:49 PM on December 21, 2009

My kung fu teacher tried to use it to write books. Due to his accent, editing the book was more difficult than if he had just hand wrote it!

So be aware that the program has difficulty with accents as well as a drawn out set up system that you have to work with so the program can understand you!
posted by Jinx of the 2nd Law at 10:23 PM on December 21, 2009