Stuck on GUI: Voice Search as an alternative
By Guest Blogger
Bill Meisel, President, TMA Associates
The WIMP interface (Window, Icon, Menu, and Pointing device)—the familiar Graphical User Interface, GUI—has proved effective on PCs and in Web browsers. The most powerful aspect of WIMP is its familiarity—one can usually find some feature or data eventually by navigating through windows or pages of information. “Eventually” and “usually” are increasingly becoming the operant words, however, as the number of features and the amount of information we encounter grow exponentially. The WIMP interface is over-extended even with a large monitor, mouse, and keyboard.
On a small mobile device such as a cellphone, the limitations of the WIMP approach are even more apparent. The small screen is more like a Porthole than a Window. (Does this make it a PIMP interface?) The device must be held, so text entry and pointing require two or three hands. Most user-interface designers work hard to extend what they know, with the latest attempt focusing on touch screens. Early adopters try many of these devices, but even these motivated users often give up using any advanced features or services and just become familiar with the basic features they use most. The WIMP alone can’t meet the potential of mobile devices to be all-purpose personal digital assistants.
There is an alternative. Speech recognition technology has matured, and can support difficult applications such as those you see advertised for automobiles, and free directory assistance services from Google, Microsoft, and others. The approach of these services is the “voice search” user interface model—just say what you want and get it, few if any layers of navigation required. Compare this to clicking through menus, lists, and web-page links.
In a situation where you can’t speak? Just type what you would say. No need to partition applications or services. The voice search paradigm can be the primary user model if we can get unstuck on GUI.
This isn’t to say all the hard work on GUIs is useless. When voice search fails, a GUI can allow slow but purposeful navigation as a backup.
Voice Search makes today’s services and products more usable, particularly when accessing those services with smaller portable devices. This isn’t theory. Nuance Communications, for example, offers a service through Sprint for $6 per month that lets users speak to make calls using the personal directory on the phone, access phone features, get a weather forecast or sports scores, do a general web search—even dictate a short email or text message. Just say what you want.
There’s even a Voice Search Conference this March. It covers mobile solutions and using the voice search paradigm in a wide variety of environments, even company customer service lines.
Voice search can be particularly effective on connected devices such as cellphones. The speech recognition can be in the networks, taking advantage of extensive computing power and large databases. Any device with a data connection and a microphone can use network-based speech recognition—and all will have identical user interfaces.
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