Proposals

The proposals discussed below address problems we encountered while working with DD. More than one month of daily experience with the software helped us to discover the advantages and disadvantages of the design. We used several HCI theories like Active User, Metaphor, TAG and GOMS to become aware of these issues. The ideas provided should be considered as proposals for the fine-tuning of DD because we did not discover major flaws in the software.

Problem

Ideas for redesign
  • Users purchase the software in anticipation of greater productivity, but voice control is slower than keyboard & mouse (see Performance Measurements)
  • Focus the users interest more on convenience; Using the software in combination with keyboard & mouse (see Final Scenario)
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  • Software system model is subtle (Dictate/Command Mode, two different learn-modes, difference between [Scratch That] and Wordlist/[Choose 10] etc.)
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  • Provide easy comprehensible (graphical) explanations in manual & online-tutorial
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  • Users do not expect to encounter severe recognition problems
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  • Mitigate: propose the 15 minute Quick-training after the tutorial to improve recognition performance
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  • It’s not easy for the user to see whether DD learns from every word or only from corrections; Leads to confusion
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  • Make learning-mode explicit (e.g. icon in Voice bar) and present the "learn-always mode" without threat
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  • Typical mouse intensive tasks like web-browsing or reading the online-help are difficult to do by voice control
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  • Add a tool (e.g. plug-in) which assigns number signs to every link if turned on by a voice command
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  • navigation with [Mouse Grid] is slow
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  • Enhance performance by reducing the number of required commands: Allow the user to say something like "[Mouse Grid 3] [5] [press 1]" which opens the mouse grid only in the sector 3 of the screen, jumps to sector 5, and presses the mouse button in the center of sector 1
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  • ICA is hard to remember; Performance of novice users is mediocre until they have learned it; User needs help
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  • Alternative: new commands like [letter J] instead of [Juliett]
  • Mitigate: Provide a small window which shows the ICA and always stays on top; User can bring it up by saying [Open ICA] and [Close ICA]
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  • Cumbersome to repeat the same command (e.g. [Page Down]) five times
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  • Providing a generic repeat method like [<Command> X times] where X stands for a number
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  • [Type Word] and [Computer Please] not consistent with [Dictate Mode] and [Command Mode] respectively
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  • Make more consistent commands like [I dictate] and [I command]
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  • Danger of destroying other user profiles by assuming that the last user is the same as the present one
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  • Provide a dialog box after the start of DD which asks for the user name
  • No default user (if not explicitly chosen by the user)
  • display active user profile in the voice-bar
  • automatic recognition of wrong voice-profile by counting errors (frequent and significant changes in the profile) and asking the user in case of doubt
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  • If the user forgets to save his voice profile and his computer crashes, he loses all changes
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  • Customizable auto-save-feature; DD can ask the user for confirmation
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  • Manual doesn’t explain in detail how to backup the user profile (for the emergency case)
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  • Provide new menu item for the backup of the voice profile
  • Provide better explanation in the manual
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  • User doesn’t learn about useful commands like [Type Word] or [Computer Please] if he doesn’t look for it in the documentation
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  • "Tip of the day" during startup (which takes about 10 seconds)
  • Provide typical user scenarios in the documentation (which contain typical problems and useful commands) and tell the user about it during the online-tutorial
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  • "Find Word" dialog is confusing; Add Word" seems to be the only choice; it is not obvious that the user can type into the list box
  • Cumbersome to choose a word from the word list
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  • Redesign of the dialog box
  • provide the same functionality as in word history ([Choose 1] to [Choose 10])
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  • Word history window is too small to see more than 5 words, although DD remembers the last 12 words by default; If user recognizes the mistake late he has to count or guess which word he wants to correct
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  • Make the Word history window the width of the screen
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  • Inexperienced users might not know how to create short-cuts if they want to enable an application for the [Bring Up] Command
  • Provide a short-cut wizard
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  • After starting DD the microphone is switched off by default; User has to press "+"-key to use voice control
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  • Micro active (sleep mode) should be default
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  • User might not know where to store self-defined macros; there are already many commands in the vocabulary manager group "global commands"
  • Provide one or more separate groups for user macros
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  • Novice user have problems using the macro language
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  • Provide a macro recording feature

    • Performance Final Scenario