The second fastest way to look up a word in a dictionary using Utter Command is to select the word, then say “This Dictionary Search”. This command looks up the selection in dictionary.com and returns the results in a browser page.
The fastest way is to combine selecting the word and searching. For instance, “Word Dictionary Search”.
You can use these commands whether or not a browser is open.
Happy searching.
Whenever I talk to people who use speech commands to control a computer I encourage them to complain. Something that frequently comes up is it’s a drag having to say “page down” so much.
We’ve come up with several ways to diminish the drag:
1. Several screens at once
First, “Page” is a back-of the-mouth word, which is more difficult to say than words that only use sounds that originate in the front of the mouth. This isn’t a problem for commands you don’t use frequently, but looms large when you have to repeat something over and over again.
And when you say “Page Down”, you’re really moving by screen, not by page. This is fortunate, because “Screen” is easier to say than “page”.
Using Utter Command you can say “Page Down” and “Page Up” to hit the page up and page down keys, but you can also say “Screen Down” and “Screen Up”. And you can move multiple screens: “2 Screen Down”, “5 Screen Up”
2. Right to the point
You can also go to a given screen. “Screen 3”, for instance, jumps you right to the third screen of information in a document.
And in programs whose Find facilities recognize page numbers, including pdf’s, you can go right to a given page by saying, for instance, “Find Page 22”. You can try this out on a UC lesson document: “UC Lesson 1”.
3. Wait
It’s still tedious to say “Screen Down” every couple of seconds when you want to glance quickly at subsequent pages. Try this: “3 Screen Down Wait 5”. This moves down a screen, waits 5 seconds, moves down another screen, waits 5 seconds, then moves down another screen.
4. The right tool for the job
It’s also important to look at exactly why you’re going through a document screen by screen. Often you’re looking through pages for a certain section. In this case the screen-by-screen facility isn’t the right tool for the job, but you may be using it because usually it’s the best tool available.
If you’re looking through a document that has numbers, letters or symbols to differentiate sections you can use the UC Keywords facility go directly to any of these. To see what I mean say “Find 1 Period”, “Find 3 Period” in this document. Now picture a longer document with more and longer sections, and a section outline along these lines:
2. Speech Command
You could say, for example “Find 1 Period”, “Find 1 Point 1”, “Find 1 Point 2” and “Find 2 period” to jump among these sections.
Using the UC Keyword list you can use any section organization scheme you want — numbers, letters, numbers and letters (1a., 1b….) or heading words themselves (“Find Introduction”, “Find Summary”). Sometimes I put tildas (~) at key points in a document so I can jump to those points (“Find Tilde”). I also use the word “PLACEHOLDER” this way (“Find Placeholder”).
You can also use “Wait” with keywords. I use this one to scan a document for placeholders: “Find Placeholder Wait 2 Repeat 5”.
Here’s another simple one.
Tabs in a browser act just like documents in a program like Word.
To close several tabs at once say, for instance, “Document Close Times 4”
This is a simple one.
When you’re in Windows Explorer and want to make a new folder, say
Under f w f (or Under Foxtrot Whiskey Foxtrot)
This will leave you all set to name the folder.
I’ve been getting a lot of questions lately about filling out forms using speech commands.
Here’s how it works:
The UC Keyword List allows you to say “Find” followed by any word or phrase to select that word or phrase in any program that has a Find dialog box. This includes Firefox and Internet Explorer. You can combine the word-finding ability with the Tab key to go straight to any field. For example, “Find First Tab” puts your cursor in the “First Name” field.
To see the forms facility in action, take this self-guided tour:
“Demo 2 File”
“Find Address Tab”
44 State St.
“Find Phone Tab”
555-555-5555
The Keyword List comes loaded with common key words and phrases. Say “Add Keyword” to add your own (say “UC Lesson 10.1” for detailed instructions).
4/15/09 Note: The release version of Utter Command also includes the UC Tab List, which allows you to mix tabs and phrases in order to fill out two fields in a form at once. For instance, you can say “2 Tab John 1 Tab Smith”, to tab 2 fields forward, then fill in “John” and “Smith” in successive fields, or “3 Tab Address” to tab 3 fields forward and fill in your address, for instance 29 Downing St. See the UC List explanation in Overview for details, including pictures.
It’s easy to remove formatting from selected text in a Word document — “Control Space”, but what do you do in programs that don’t have this function?
There’s not a keyboard shortcut for removing formatting in Google documents, but here’s a two-step way to get the job done. You can copy the text to one of the UC Clipboard files, which will save it as .txt, then paste the plain text from that file.
Here’s the sequence:
Removing formatting from selected text in a Google document
Copy to 1 File
1 File Paste
You can speed things up by selecting text and copying to a UC clipboard file in one step. Here are a couple of examples:
Selecting text and removing its formatting in a Google document
Line Copy to 1 File
1 File Paste
or
2 Graphs · Copy to 1 File
1 File Paste
It’s important to save documents you’re working on (say “Control s”), but it’s all too easy to get absorbed in what you are writing and forget to save.
Here are a couple of commands that make this easier:
Making a new line and saving in one step
Enter · Control s
Making a paragraph and saving in one step
2 Enter · Control s
Keyboard shortcuts are powerful tools for the speech interface because they work across all programs and they can be combined — you can say several keyboard shortcuts in one phrase to speed things up.
This is why we encourage all software makers to make all features available via keyboard shortcuts.
Google is experimenting with adding keyboard shortcuts to search results. Here are the experimental keyboard shortcuts:
| Command | Action |
| Letter J | Selects next result |
| Letter K | Selects previous result |
| Enter (or Letter O) | Opens selected result |
| Slash | Moves cursor to search box |
| Escape | Moves cursor to results |
And here’s how to speed things up further with Utter Command combinations:
| Command | Action |
| Letter J · Enter | Opens next result |
| Letter K · Enter | Opens previous result |
| J Times 1-100 | Moves down 1-100 and selects result |
| K Times 1-100 | Moves up 1-100 and selects result |
| J Times 1-100 · Enter | Moves down 1-100 and opens result |
| K Times 1-100 · Enter | Moves up 1-100 and opens result |
| Escape · Enter | Moves cursor to results and opens |
To try these out
1. Go to the Google experimental page www.google.com/experimental/1
2. Under the Keyboard Shortcuts heading click “Join Experiment”
3. Go to regular Google search www.google.com2 or Advanced Google search www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en3, type a query, then try the shortcuts on the results.
As long as you’re logged in you’ll be able to use these shortcuts in the regular and advanced Google search pages.
Note: the Join Experiment button uses cookies. If your browser is set to remove all cookies at the end of a session and you want to retain this setting add www.google.com to your exceptions list (Firefox: Tools/Options/Privacy/Exceptions; Internet Explorer: Tools/Options/Privacy/Sites).
The SpeechTEK speech conference has a lot to say about the state of the desktop speech interface. The exhibits in and 2006 and 2007 were largely about where all the speech interface action is these days — not on the desktop, but over the telephone with interactive voice response (IVR) systems.
I went to several sessions aimed at the voice user interface designers (Vuids) who construct telephone speech command interfaces (even though I’m something of an imposter as a desktop voice user interface designer — I guess Dvuid would be the appropriate term).
We’re dealing with a lot of the same issues, though often with different twists:
And we’re looking at similar answers:
I’ve also been thinking about the differences between IVR and the desktop speech interface — these differences make the challenges more difficult or easier for each of the systems.
Here’s an attempt to explain the potential of the speech interface.
Controlling a computer using a mouse and keyboard is a very specific type of control, and for many years it was all we knew. This type of control still defines how we think about communicating with computers.
While it’s good to tap existing knowledge, it’s important not to let experience confine new methods of communication.
The way today’s speech interfaces work, speech commands often follow in the footsteps of the keyboard and mouse (“File”, “Open”, “Budget”, “Enter”) rather than tapping the full potential of speech (“Budget Folder”).
Think about the differences between road travel and air travel.
A plane goes faster than a car, so following a road from the air is faster than driving, and following roads might not be a bad idea at first to get your bearings. But the real power of air travel is the ability to travel any route, including over areas inaccessible by car like large bodies of water, mountain ranges and polar regions.
The Human-Machine Grammar that underpins Utter Command is aimed at mapping the best way to use speech to control the computer. The real power of speech is the ability to command the computer in ways not possible using the keyboard and mouse.
Here’s another metaphor:
In the days when cars that went 15 miles an hour were cutting-edge, this seemed fast — four times faster than walking and you didn’t have to expend energy. It may seem like working on a computer is fast today. It’s not. Speech has the potential to take us into another realm in terms of productivity.