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             Desktop 
              speech products specific criteria: 
             
              
              OUR EXPERIENCES  
                with desktop speech recognition products have led us to look for 
                several specific items as instances of bugs, usability errors 
                or limitations on expandability in these products. This list changes 
                from time to time as clients and testers discover new items of 
                importance. 
               Installation:  
               no gratuitous images
                handles out of sequence user responses
                doesn't leave temporary installation files lying around
                 self-contained - does not require additional installation 
                  of external components from other vendors
                 does not conflict with other products from major vendors 
                  which have the same purpose
                 keeps its program files in its own directory rather than 
                  Windows\System 
              Enrollment process:  
               no gratuitous images
                   handles out of sequence responses
                   user can re-dictate misspoken phrases
                   multiple choices for training text
                
                
              Training process:  
               speed of learning new words and phrases
                    
              handles special words like "3Com" and "Y2K"
                     can delete a mistrained word from vocabulary
                    can train alpha characters used for spelling
                 
                  
              Dictation:  
               properly capitalizes beginning of sentences for insertions
                      
               status of recognizer shown - listening, processing commands, 
                processing text, overrun
              messages not truncated on status bar
                       availability of history list of commands and phrases
                       multilevel undo
                       availability of "computer attention word" to force 
                        next phrase to be treated as a command
                       availability of an "escape" word to prevent command 
                        interpretation of next phrase
                       right click on highlighted phrase brings up correction 
                        and training verbs
                       existence of playback facility
                       playback facility handles insertions/deletions correctly
                       playback facility doesn't drop phrases
                       accuracy of single word dictation, i.e. a one word 
                        phrase surrounded by pause
                      
              no bizarre capitalization errors
              assignable key to toggle microphone on and off
                      
               "Select <text>" command works in multiple windows 
                
                    
              Text to speech performance:  
               good phrasing, pitch and tempo
                        
               trainable pronunciation for new words
              easy to stop and continue while audio proofreading
                        
              works in long documents
              works outside of native word processor
              
              Macro capability:  
              will accept parameters to the macro
                           facility to copy and paste from other macros
                          
               facility to make an alias for any official command including 
                "wake up" and "go to sleep " and "computer attention word"
                           macros can handle combinations of keystrokes, program 
                            initiation, reference to other macros
                           keystroke capture facility
                           export/import macros by user or global context
                          internal macro format is text editable
                           macro can be made aware of current window focus 
                            in order to behave differently
                      
                        
              Transcription process:  
               short time to change between transcription device 
                              input and regular user microphone input
                             doesn't drop phrases without warning
                             ability to abort from keyboard a transcription 
                              translation that is going badly wrong
                             transcription errors trainable
                        
                          
              Quality of manuals and on line help:  
               no "tips" or "hints" in manuals
                              
              no manual references to "see on-line help for more details"
               help available in all contexts with context sensitive command 
                list 
                
              
               
                
                
                More on bug testing... 
                More on usability... 
                More on expandability... 
              
             
             
            
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