Lets talk about design. 

Have you ever wanted to scream?  If you have used Dragon in the past I would bet that you have!  I see it all the time during training as people get frustrated.  But screeming into the computer does not help the recognition accuracy!  You can bet on that.

Unfortunately, there are too many people who have had more than a little bit of  bad experience using Dragon NaturallySpeaking.  Possibly you are one such person or know someone who has had a bad experience.  There are many issues involved here and so I would like to discuss a few of them on this page.

Recently I was training one of my clients.  She told me about her friend who had used Dragon NaturallySpeaking previously; someone who had tried it for a while and then gave up on it.  Because of this story my client was apprehensive about whether Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional 10 would really work for her or not.

I assured her that with the training she was receiving she would greatly benefit from using “NatSpeak”, as some people like to call it.  While working with NatSpeak on her own she experienced some errors that repeated often and this frustrated her.  In a succeeding training session I learned of the repeating errors and showed her how to resolve the problem using the Vocabulary Editor built into Dragon NaturallySpeaking.  Seeing this work so well gave her more confidence.   I also continued to work with her to help her learn to correct properly.  Correcting properly is essential for resolving recognition errors and helping the program to “learn” and not repeat errors.

Because my client works with a lot of medical terminology her employer soon upgraded her to the Medical Suite which greatly improved her recognition accuracy.  She also took my advice to have her employer purchase a Philips SpeechMike.  This microphone helped her to relax and her accuracy continued to improve.

Recently, I was speaking with her and she told me that she uses the program constantly now.  It has become her regular source of word processing input.  She loves the Dragon Medical Suite and raves about the Philips SpeechMike too.

My client’s friend who had given up using Dragon NaturallySpeaking had never received training and was instead given a “sink or swim” situation.  She “sank” because she became frustrated and did not have the training to help her resolve the efficiency issues.  Though there are people who are able to use Dragon NaturallySpeaking on their own they likely will not make use of such fundamental features as Vocabulary Editor and how to correct in the most efficient manor.  They likely won’t know about Sample Commands,  which provides a very helpful list of commands one can use.

Too often Dragon NaturallySpeaking is tried discarded as not making the grade.  But when someone is there to resolve the issues quickly the program quickly takes  on new status as no longer an experimental toy but is instead an efficiency tool.  The difference comes down to personal support and training.

CompuTALK offers personal training, both in person, and over the Internet.  In addition, we provide an inexpensive training solution through the SpeakEASY DVD.  This complete training program is a great way to get started on the right path.  But as a caution, CompuTALK does not recommend that a new user rely upon the training DVD as their sole source of training.  CompuTALK strongly recommends that people invest three or more hours into personal training.  As the new user gets helped with Dragon NaturallySpeaking issues quickly then they will confidently use it every day.

©2007 Jim Bendewald
CompuTALK