Our honorable mention in this roundup, IBM's ViaVoice Pro Millennium Edition, provides a wide range of functionality for both dictation and controlling applications, as well as the best accuracy scores of the group. Novices will be able to get started quickly, while power users will appreciate the program's advanced macro capabilities. Our testers, however, found some of ViaVoice's editing features awkward, a big factor in its overall usability.
Installation and initial setup went smoothly, thanks to well-designed wizard screens and an animated character that explains how to start. Users can expect to be dictating within 20 to 30 minutes of software installation, including 10 to 15 minutes of reading enrollment text.
On our tests, ViaVoice was the most accurate product. Initial accuracy after enrollment was 95 percent, which rose to an outstanding 98 percent when we dictated the same document after making corrections. In daily use, most users should attain accuracy somewhere between these two numbers.
ViaVoice, like the other products we tested, lets you control menus and
dialog boxes in most Windows programs, with natural-language commands available
for Microsoft Word and Excel, among others. ViaVoice also lets you surf the Web
by voice-enabling Internet Explorer.
ViaVoice has the best macro capabilities of any program tested. In addition to macros that type text and keystrokes, you can write macros that insert the date, for example, and that include user-defined lists (you could program a command such as "send e-mail message to friend," where friend is any name from a list you create). ViaVoice has the ability to save the audio of the last thousand words dictated for playback, which can help you correct mistakes. This feature is essential if you want to delegate editing to someone else.
Correcting mistakes in ViaVoice is cumbersome, however. The program's manual suggests using a combination of mouse, keyboard, and voice to edit, rather than using just voice commands. Also, you can't use common formatting commands in SpeakPad, ViaVoice's own simple word processor. In our testers' experience, commands such as "bold last three words" worked only within Microsoft Word.
ViaVoice's excellent accuracy scores are tempered by the program's limited correction capabilities. But those new to speech recognition, and power users who value the program's macro capabilities and ability to save audio for later playback, will find much to like about ViaVoice.