Voice to Text Dictation

For many years, I have been looking at dictation services that would allow us to have our speech converted directly to text. Finding something that meets acceptability standards for our lawyers has been difficult indeed.

Dictation for Windows Computers

On the PC, Windows 7 comes with a built in voice recognition program. However, it is not very good and makes a great number of mistakes. It is accessible via Control Panel, but I found the accuracy so low that I don't recommend it at all.  

Dragon Naturally Speaking

A few of our attorneys have used Dragon Naturally Speaking for many years. Dragon works reasonably well for users who take the time to learn the voice commands and do the training.  It does not take nearly as much training time as it did with older versions that were available several years ago.  It actually does a pretty good job. But another issue with Dragon is that it tends to be a resource hog on your computer and can sometimes lead to other problems. It is running all the time, and can slow down your computer even when you are not using it.  Therefore, it's not something we have pushed.  But if an attorney wishes to try it, we can purchase a license for you.

Dictation on Android or IOS

I find dictation on a phone or tablet using Android or iOS to be much better. It usually seems faster and more accurate than anything I have found for the PC. Dictation is built into all of these devices and it can be accessed simply by pressing the microphone on the virtual keyboard.

A couple of years ago, we did a test using Android tablets as dictation devices to see if that would be a useful alternative to, or even a replacement for, voice recorders for attorneys to dictate their documents. Unfortunately, we decided not to proceed with that initiative because the dictation solution was proving frustrating to many of our testers.

While the dictation was accurate enough when we spoke slowly and clearly, users were frustrated by the inability to dictate advanced punctuation. Periods, commas, and question marks worked just fine, but other punctuation such as semi-colons or parentheses were beyond its abilities.  Footnotes and advanced formatting were also out of the question.

Also, if a user made a mistake or wanted to change something, one could not go back and delete information or move the cursor back to edit or insert text somewhere using voice commands.  Rather, one must use the touch screen, which can be slow, clumsy, and frustrating. Testers felt that this slowed up their ability to do the dictation as compared to simply dictating into a recorder and letting a human convert it into text. So, we shelved the project hoping that dictation would improve with time. We are still waiting.  Nevertheless, despite these shortcomings, many of our attorneys and staff find the dictation features built into Android and iOS useful for entering time, dictating emails, and even dictating simple documents. 

Dictation to Google Drive

I recommend using Google Drive on one's phone or tablet to dictate documents if you are so inclined. That way the document can be easily available to you on the PC through the same Google Drive account.  It could even be shared with a secretary or anyone else who you would want to clean up and format the document. Sometimes, with my phone connected to Wifi, I dictate into my phone to a document on Google Drive, while having the document open on my computer.  It will update automatically in real time. I can make changes on my computer using my keyboard, then continue dictating on the phone.  If anyone wishes to give this a try I am happy to show you how to do it and to provide you with any equipment necessary. For me, however, using my Samsung Galaxy S5 is the easiest way to dictate.

I dictated this blog entry on my phone.  In these eight paragraphs, the dictation made nine mistakes, but seven of those were simply failures to capitalize words.  Only twice did it transcribe the wrong word.  It was great for a first draft.  I then went back and reworded things and made other edits on my computer before publishing the final product.