Thursday, June 12, 2008

Is voice recognition for everyone?

I had just visited MT Stars and someone had asked a question about whether voice recognition was just not for everyone and it got me to thinking about my own experience with VR or ASR or voice recognition or speech recognition or piece of crap, whatever you want to call it.


I must say when I heard ASR was coming and I was going to train to do it back about two years ago I was really excited. I love to learn new things, I become very passionate about the whole being-taught-something-new process. In fact I'm shocked I never became a career student because I love to learn new things so much. My problem is I like to learn by doing, I have a tough time learning by being told and shown, I'm a hands-on type of thinker/learner. Anyway I'm off subject a little here. I was excited for ASR and had a great time when I got to learn it and started to actually be able to do it. I thought it was wonderful with a capital W. The learning and starting-to-do phase was almost like a honeymoon phase and I did so well and was still so excited.

But I must say, the honeymoon phase disappeared soon after and I actually got to where I didn't really like ASR much. I find that many times it would be so much quicker to just type the report out because it's awkward to have to delete and correct so much of the report. ASR has certainly gotten better in the last two years since I started, but it's still a pain in the butt.

I also find that I have trouble concentrating and am much more apt to get up and wander around, go to the bathroom, do some laundry or whatever than if I'm typing the report myself. With typing I'm able to get into a sort of transcription trance as I like to call it where I'm completely engrossed and in the zone. I can block out things going on around me because I'm engrossed in my typing, but with ASR I've never been able to get into a groove, it's just boring to me. I find I have to concentrate more but am so bored I have trouble actually concentrating. Don't get me wrong, I'm good at my job, even ASR, and my QA audits are always over the required 98% or whatever, in fact they're generally over 99% which I'm very proud of.

To me ASR just seems like more work because instead of just typing and getting the report done I spend so much time deleting, deleting, correcting, deleting, moving this here, moving that there, and I have trouble keeping my fingers in one spot because I have to use keys that are in odd places on the keyboard such as the shift and delete and arrows and blah blah blah. Maybe someday they will come up with keyboards that are geared towards people who do corrections more than just straight typing so that the keys we use more will be closer together, something like they did with keyboards that are geared towards gamers, but I somehow doubt it. I'm sure they probably have keyboards out there that are completely customizable, but I've never taken the time to look...maybe I should.

Anyway, I suppose that ASR is just like anything else, it depends on who you are if you like it or not. My best friend also works for MQ and she absolutely loves ASR and much prefers it to typing, we laugh at each other because we're so opposite on the work spectrum. I honestly can't say I'd want to go back to 100% typing, more like 80% typing and 20% ASR just so it would break up the day. Of course, I could probably go and find a different job that would be all typing, but I really don't want to do that either so obviously I like ASR enough to keep my job and not want to look for another. Maybe I just like to gripe more than anything, haha.

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