Dragon Naturally Speaking, Version 12

By Bayle Emlein

Speech to Text has gotten so much better that I thought I would use it to write a review of itself, with mixed results. So near, and yet so far. After all these years, this is still a technology whose maturity is five years in the future. I know some others claim to have better results and I’ve seen the ads on TV.

I performed the requested trainings for mike, sound level, and recognition of my speaking style. Granted, I do not have the ideal voice or speech patterns for the software, nor do I have much patience for further training and correcting. Furthermore, no eating, drinking or chewing gum. How am I supposed to think without caffeine?

That being said, Dragon is ready for the user who has the patience to correct its misrecognitions, especially if that user lacks keyboarding skills or is otherwise limited in ability to use a keyboard. Sufficient reading and language skills are helpful in noticing and correcting errors. The Read Back feature will overcome this barrier to some extent–particularly helpful to low-vision users. But there is no substitute for the reading and language management skills needed to get Dragon to successfully and accurately record one’s ideas.

Tomorrow we’ll see just how accurate Dragon proved to be!