Speech recognition software has come a long way since the days when you had to dictate word… by… word. In this time the product has become much more accurate and it’s faster to get up to speed compared with the early days when you required more training and correction in order to get reasonable results. For instance, 90% may sound like a high level of accuracy, however that means there are 10 mistakes for every hundred words, which is actually an unacceptable level of accuracy for someone wanting to increase productivity. Correcting 10 words for every hundred dictated means that you are taking too long to actually fix your document and it isn’t free-flowing enough for you to simply carry on dictating. The correction process may be cumbersome to begin with but the more you do it the more improved your profile becomes. Corrections are important because they say to Dragon this misrecognised word incorrect, here is the correct word. Repeatedly doing this will improve your profile and accuracy.
A lot of users are happy enough with the results to begin with, thinking they will simply type over any misrecognised text, however this obviously impedes the flow and affects productivity over the long term. You don’t want to have to constantly be fixing errors, especially when you are using those words or phrases repeatedly. It’s definitely a case of a stitch in time saves nine when it comes to Dragon, so be dedicated and disciplined about corrections and after a few weeks you won’t have much lag to deal with. Obviously if the word isn’t in the vocabulary it won’t get it right, and they are exceptions where you may have a word that will take quite a bit of correcting to get it up the list of next best guesses, but it’s that slog that will save you time in the long run.
Being so accurate out-of-the-box means there’s less of a learning curve and while you will only be able to discover most of the features with the software by taking training and discovering just how much more customised you can make your vocabulary, workflow and environment, this is very important.
Dragon can be useful to just about anyone. Whether you are drafting the odd email, doing a school project, drafting legal documents, writing a novel or updating your patient management system with notes, Dragon is a great way to be able to sit back, relax and just let the words flow. While you may think that you think best while typing, it really requires practice and getting used to composing your thoughts out loud. If you imagine yourself on a phone call, it makes this transition much easier as you build your dictation confidence and become better at stringing phrases together. So, whether you are writing your memoirs, getting assignments done or just experimenting with the ability to convert speech-to-text, Dragon can be fun and make text generation easier and quicker.