For some reason, we’ve got used to the concept of typing. Pressing a series of buttons in a sequence to generate words has become the default input when it comes to documentation. People take typing classes, they learn to touch type and actually can get very good at it with a few months of practice. Even this author has got to a reasonable typing speed of 56 words per minute without ever taking a course. Getting a sixth sense for where the buttons on the keyboard are makes it much easier to pick up speed.
While your better than average typing speed may seem good enough, there are still a great deal of errors that we have to backspace or correct as we go along. Once you’ve typed a paragraph, it feels like you’ve done some work and there’s a reluctance to clear it out or retype it. Not so with Dragon speech recognition software.
When you dictate your notes or document, it’s so quick and efficient that you won’t have any problem deleting an entire paragraph. In fact, it’s so easy to repopulate that you could simply read the paragraph below as a new paragraph before deleting the old one. The speed of talking and having text appear is unrivaled. Even the fastest typists will tire after continued transcription whereas Dragon’s machine capability makes it keep going as long as there’s input sound.
Many think they can only work efficiently if they’re typing while they think. This is a fallacy. It may take a while for you to start getting used to composing your thoughts out loud but just like typing, it just requires practice. Once you’ve got it down, you can literally create a document in minutes. Having a clear order of events to your document like most doctors have when dictating a letter or report makes the documentation a breeze.
Clients may have a little delay when it comes to getting comfortable dictating especially when under the spotlight. If folks aren’t comfortable dictating or even speaking about their weekend, we tend to suggest reading a prepared document to help ease them into this new mode of text generation. Email is a fantastic place to get started because it’s slightly more casual. Sending a chatty email or long overdue newsletter can give you the opportunity to improve your dictation skills.
It may seem a bit unnatural at first but the better you get at it, the easier your flow of thoughts becomes. Best of all, if you dictate something you don’t want to use there’s no problem in scratching it. It takes seconds to dictate and there’s less concern about the physical effort expended. Plus, Dragon users can actually have their documents read back to them using the user’s playback recording or the system’s built-in screen reader.
If you’re on the fence when it comes to making the switch to dictation, know that it doesn’t mean you can never type again. You can still send a quick email by typing but after using Dragon for a few months, it will start to just seem silly to do anything by dictate! We’re hoping that you’ll fall in love with this input so much that we’ll get a call the second something prevents you from dictating your emails and documents!