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I still think voice should be the goal. It has been the universal API for thousands of years. All of us are probably “good with computers” by virtue of the fact
by janalsncm 4y ago
I still think voice should be the goal. It has been the universal API for thousands of years. All of us are probably “good with computers” by virtue of the fact that we figured out how to sign up but there are millions who aren’t.
This isn’t an excuse to replace UIs or humans with horrible phone trees. I won’t defend the obvious race to the bottom. Hopefully better voice interfaces are here soon.
- Barrin92 4y agogiven the extent to which audio phone calls have been replaced by text I'm always super sceptical of voice as the primary interface. It has so many disadvantages. No simple to see history, loud (by definition) in any non-private space, not composable, not easily copyable, very slow discovery, and so on. Voice is strictly serial. Tactile or visual interfaces you can just look at and move around in and immediately have a layout of the thing. Regardless of how smart the voice control is those issues are pretty intrinstic. There's also no 'halting state' to voice. That you can switch between different visual interfaces without losing your state is pretty necessary today. But you can't really stop or multitask audio controls sensibly.
- gbear605 4y agoVoice also simply doesn’t work for people with auditory issues (which includes many elderly people)! They theoretically could use video with a sign language, but there’s no way that that will be prioritized, especially with the “get 80% done and ignore the rest of the use cases” attitude that people have. Text to speech is the solution that they wind up using, but then what’s even the point? Thank god for the ADA at least.