Can you type is quickly as you think? I certainly can't.

How do you think that affects your writing?

Humans can only focus on a few things at a time, and if you're focused on where your fingers are going or whether you've made a mistake, you are using cognitive resources that could have gone into thinking better or communicating more clearly.

It shouldn't come as a big surprise to you that talking is so much more natural than typing. Think how much more practice you get doing it. So, it follows that it's easier to create natural sounding content by transcribing what you say, rather than typing what you think.

With Dragon NaturallySpeaking, you get the best of both worlds. It transcribes your voice, and then you have an opportunity to edit it using your voice or the keyboard.

The Whole Process Is Faster … Not Just the Typing.

Because the process is more natural (and less error-prone), something that might take hours to compose on a keyboard can be dictated in a few minutes. More importantly, it will probably sound better and be easier to understand.

How Fast Do You Type? You can check your speed here or here.

I was surprised to learn that my average typing speed is between 40 and 50 words per minute.  Dragon NaturallySpeaking clocks in about three times faster than that.

Speech Recognition Is Getting Better All the Time.

The first time I saw someone use speech recognition was in the mid-1990s. As you might suspect, the technology was much cruder than it is today.  However, the user had Parkinson's disease. So the hassle of learning to use a pre-cursor to this technology made sense. As an early adopter, I tried it too. But back then, it didn't make sense for me to use it regularly. Fast forward to today, and I use Dragon NaturallySpeaking almost every day. Why? Because it's easier for me than typing.

Nuance has become a leader in this field. In addition to DNS, they've got great applications that work on smart phones, and they also bought the popular service called Jott. I mention it because their massive user-base across these products and services allow Nuance to collect millions of voice samples and customer feedback from around the world. The samples show not only different ways that people pronounce words, but which words are more likely to be spoken, and in what context. Add that to the improvements in microphones, sound cards, processing power, etc. — and the result is a faster and more accurate recognition engine.

Earlier versions of the technology were very dependent on how well you trained it. Now, it works decently out-of-the-box, with virtually no setup or specialized training. As good as it is, I appreciate that Nuance makes it easy for the program to learn my writing style and particular vocabulary. To do this, for example, you can let it look at your sent mail folder or a folder of word processing documents.

If you're a fumble-fingered typist, I highly recommend that you go out and find a copy of this program. However, even if you're a good typist, I recommend that you get a copy because you'll find that you write better and spend more time focusing on what you're going to say … rather than worrying whether you got it down on paper the right way.

Bottom-Line:  It's time to give this technology a fresh look. It's ready for prime time, and I think Nuance has a hit.

Give it a try.