Quote:
Originally Posted by edx1
Products like Google speech to text, Siri, and BB talk I think quickly outdate hand input of information in car environments.
|
Doing user interface engineering for quite a while, I disagree. The problem is that technologies that can only be used some of the time cannot be the primary interface, even if it works for "most". Most isn't good enough when it comes to important interfaces. And audio input doesn't work in noisy environments, with people with voices outside the "normal" range, people with speech impediments or heavy accents. Or a cold.
Perhaps most of all, it's excessively error-prone. The latter isn't just due to the technology not being perfect yet, but because there isn't a 1:1 mapping between pronunciation and typing. You can add the most well-known exceptions like Clwyd and Worchester, but you'll still miss out on awful lot of place and street names. Going to Ng Street? Or Haaoeen (haw-uh-enn)? And yes, people need to go there too.
80% isn't good enough; so there must always be a main interface that can be relied upon.
iPhone, tablets, Siri and Google Talk are, despite what many think, not the solution - they're the current fad, and the pendulum has already started to swing the other way again, as people find that the limitations outweigh the ease of use.
And similar with the one-button solution of BMW - the simplicity makes it so cumbersome to use that they had to add a dozen buttons to help it.
To paraphrase, every user interface should be as simple as possible,
but no simpler.
That's where we've failed the last few years - simplicity has ruined functionality, and the reaction is coming.