Announcement Blog

Talking Point Experiment

Posted on: Monday 29 September 2008

Talking vs Typing

The Exeter Business Network
SANDY PARK, 9 APRIL 2008

Introduction

A seminar was held by Voicescene Ltd prior to the monthly Exeter Business Network lunch. A controlled experiment was set up to measure the difference in performance between typing and dictating using speech recognition.

The Experiment

Text was presented to the participants totalling 121 words. The text was unseen by the participants prior to be experiment. A copy of the text is included at the end of this report.

The participants were requested to type the text at their normal typing speed whilst at the same time being as accurate as they reasonably could. Errors were checked by other participants and counted.

Sean and Jane Humby, directors of Business Network (SW) Ltd, divided their participation with Jane doing the typing.

The participants then were asked to dictate the text direct to screen using Dragon NaturallySpeaking software. One participant had been using the TalkingPoint software for approximately 2 weeks. The other participants had no training or previous experience.

The Results

The typing results showed a wide range in performance depending on the skill of the individual. The quickest being 150 seconds and on the longest 612 seconds. A variation in excess of 300% with the errors ranging from four to nine per typist.

The speech recognition test showed very little variation with everyone completing in approximately 1 minute with a range of 49 seconds to 72 seconds.

The full results are shown in the table below and from which two clear conclusions can be made.

• Transcribing text by speech recognition is approximately 3 times faster than typing for an average to good typist.
• Irrespective of typing ability transcription by speech recognition produces a significantly more consistent level of performance.

Addendum

Following this experiment the test was undertaken by a highly qualified touch typist who completed typing the text in 96 seconds making just two mistakes. The speed achieved was 76 wpm. The average user when dictating e-mails and correspondence etc will probably not exceed 55 words per minute.

This experiment is shown that people with no training are able to achieve consistently a dictation speed of 125 words per minute using TalkingPoint speech recognition systems.

Full details here

G. T. White
Director
Voicescene Ltd
09 April 2008

Test Text

The following is an extract from the DOGBERT'S TOP SECRET MANAGEMENT HANDBOOK, as told to Scott Adams, author of The Dilbert Principle.

DOGBERT'S TOP SECRET MANAGEMENT HANDBOOK. Copyright (c) 1996 by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.

A manager is automatically endowed with powers to manipulate time. You can suspend the relationship between cause and effect and make time move at any rate you choose. This is handy more often than you might think.

These powers can be useful when your employees tell you that an important task will take six months to finish. Let's say you just told your boss that the task would take only two weeks. All you have to do is adjust the time line down to two weeks.

This change will cause a chain of events that will ripple through the fabric of space-time and result in the energy-free transfer of blame from you to your employees at approximately the speed of light.

121 words

Participants.

Jane Humby, Director. Business Network (SW) Ltd
Sean Humby, Director. Business Network (SW) Ltd
Chrissie Peel, Retail Manager. Devon Air Ambulance Trust
Julie Piper, Managing Director. Springboard Marketing Ltd