Jakob Nielsen’s latest Alertbox, Voice Interfaces: Assessing the Potential, makes an amusing point:
Many people have an exaggerated impression about voice-interface benefits, likely based on the prominence of voice-operated computers in Star Trek. You know, the captain says, “Computer, locate Commander Data” and the computer answers, “Commander Data is no longer on the ship: he left half an hour ago on an unauthorized shuttle launch.”I’ve always thought that Captain Picard would have been much better off with a design that informed him immediately when a shuttle was stolen, without first waiting to be asked.
His more serious point is that speaking isn’t a great advantage over typing in most cases — and listening is far worse than looking at a screen.