Voice input: Make all functionality available via voice control

Some users may prefer to use only the keyboard for navigation due to difficulty in controlling a mouse or other pointing device. The user should be able to efficiently carry out all tasks with a keyboard alone. 

Related RtF projects and Discussion Groups

• Blindness and Low Vision Discussion Group (BLVDG)
• Physical Disability Discussion Group (PHDG)

Discussion by Disabilities (Benefits & Preferred Behaviors)

Physical

• People with severe physical disabilities may have difficulty typing or pointing with a traditional keyboard and mouse. Voice input can be used instead to type much more efficiently.

Blind and Low Vision

• People who are blind or who have very low vision may not be able to see text as they type, and thus can enter text more quickly and efficiently through a voice input system. 

Existing Products

Please note that these products are not necessarily endorsed by RtF, but represent the range of available options.

Open Source and free

These products are free and their source code may be modified with few restrictions.

• Shoot 1.6.4
• Speech Dasher - U. of Cambridge
• SUITEKeys - College of Charleston, U. of Louisiana - Lafayette

Free, not necessarily open source

These products are free to use, but may have strict restrictions on viewing and modifying source code.

• e-Speaking - e-Speaking
• SimplyWeb2000 - EconoNet International
• Windows Speech Recognition - Microsoft

Commercial, with free trial

These products are free to try for a limited period of time or with limited functionality. They must be purchased for full functionality.

• Dictation 2005 & Wave to Text - Research Labs, Inc
• Speak to Me / Voice Recognition - RJ Cooper

Commercial, no free trial

These products must be purchased to be used, and did not offer free trials at the time of posting.

• Adept1 - Amazability
• Dragon Naturally Speaking - Nuance
• iCommunicator - PPR
• J-Say - Tandt Consulting
• MacSpeech Dictate - MacSpeech
• NetEcho - Internet Speech
• Talking Desktop - Talking Desktop
• ViaVoice - IBM

Related Research and Papers

• Mixed-initiative dialog management for speech-based interaction with graphical user interfaces - Löhr, A. and Brügge, B. (2008)
• A browser for a public-domain SpeechWeb - University of Windsor - Frost, R.A., Ma, X., and Shi, Y. (2007)
• The vocal joystick:: evaluation of voice-based cursor control techniques - University of Washington - Harada, S., Landay, J.A., Malkin, J., Li, X., and Bilmes, J.A. (2006)
• Support for input adaptability in the ICON toolkit - Dragicevic, P. and Fekete, J. (2004)
• Web engineering meets natural language processing: a vocal interface generation practice - Cidade Universitária, Brazil - Macedo, H., Robin, J., and Barros, R. (2005)
• CMU Sphinx Group Open Source Speech Recognition Engines - Carnegie Mellon

Contributions & Discussion

Any corrections, suggestions, or additions to this page? Please let us know by emailing Contribution@RaisingTheFloor.net with [MasterList] in the subject line. 

You can also join the discussion on the Access Feature Master List Google Group.