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Gravity on the Web

Wednesday, August 6th, 2008

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Computer commands of all kinds — speech, keyboard and mouse — are much easier to use when they’re consistent across programs.

At the base level, it’s important that common elements like drop-down menus act the same. You control drop-down menus without thinking — click on an element or use the Left, Right, Up, Down and Enter keys.

Consistent commands are the real-world equivalent of having the same gravity in every room, or keys turning the same way to unlock.

Web applications are looking more and more like standard computer programs, but sometimes the elements that look familiar don’t act the way we’re used to. Drop-down menus usually respond in a familiar way to the mouse, but often don’t respond to the Up, Down and Enter keys.

But perhaps things are getting better.

The first drop-down menus to show up on Google Docs didn’t respond to Left, Right, Up, Down and Enter. Then most of the folder-view drop-down menus were arrow key/Enter enabled, but not document menus. A few months ago document menus changed from looking tab-like to looking more menu like, but still didn’t respond to arrow keys and Enter. Then, sometime in the last few weeks, the Doc menus were arrow key/Enter enabled (the change didn’t show up on the update notice).

The keyboard shortcuts enable better speech navigation as well. I can say, for instance, “3 Down Enter” to choose an item in an open menu, “3 Down 2 Right Enter” to choose a color on the open color menu, or “7 Right Wait 3″ to take a three-second peak at each of the seven successive menus starting with the file menu open.

This is a great trend.

Now all we need is keyboard shortcuts to open the menus in the first place. We also need the same kind of control in all Web applications, including Google spreadsheets.

Posted in Interface, Keyboard shortcuts, Patch on Speech, Speech Recognition, Standards, UC, Web | No Comments »

Friday Tip: Remembering boilerplate and vocabulary commands

Friday, August 1st, 2008

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NatSpeak boilerplate Text and Graphics commands allow you to insert any text or graphics into a document using a single speech command. These commands can be very powerful — they’re good for adding text and graphics that you use often, such as your address or a set of directions.

The NatSpeak Vocabulary editor allows you to add words or phrases to your vocabulary that have different spoken and written forms. This allows you to make words like your email address easily pronounceable.

The key to using boilerplate and vocabulary commands is being able to remember them.

There are two ways to make these types of commands easy to remember:

1. Word them consistently

2. Make them easy to look up

I find the easiest way to remember boilerplate Text and Graphics commands is to simply say the first part of the text you’re inserting followed by “Full”. So “Redstart Full” prints the full name and address of Redstart Systems. If you have two different versions of the address, add a number. “Redstart Full 1″ prints the same address in a different format.

You can use the Utter Command Clipboard facility to make anything easy to look up. Once you name your Text and Graphics command say “Line Copy To” followed by the name of the UC Clipboard file and you’ve got it recorded. For example, to keep your boilerplate commands in “UC List 1″ say “Line Copy To List 1″.

Now any time you want to consult your list of commands say “List 1 File”. You can also print it out.

I also use the start-to-say method for vocabulary words that have different written and spoken forms. I’ve put my Redstart email address in as a vocabulary word with the spoken form “Kim at Red” and my Gmail address in as a vocabulary word with the spoken form “Kim at G Mail” (in address commands I use “Kim” whether or not the actual address is just Kim or something longer).

One caution in using vocabulary in this way — make sure commands are at least two words and make sure the two words are not a common phrase that you’d want to say as is. If you need to, use the “Full” method above to avoid this problem. Also make sure to save your user after adding vocabulary words.

If you wish, keep vocabulary words that have different written and spoken forms on the same list as your boilerplate commands.

The difference between boilerplate commands and written/spoken vocabulary words is a block of boilerplate is returned exactly as written, while vocabulary commands are treated like words, with appropriate spacing before and after them.

UC Commands Tip: say “NatSpeak” followed by the first one or two words in a NatSpeak dialog box title to call up that dialog box.

Commands for the dialog boxes mentioned above:

“NatSpeak My Commands” calls up the NatSpeak My Commands dialog box where you can write a boilerplate Text and Graphics macro

“NatSpeak Vocabulary” calls up the NatSpeak Vocabulary Editor dialog box

Posted in Interface, NaturallySpeaking, Patch on Speech, Speech Commands, Speech Recognition, Tips, UC | No Comments »

Friday Tip: Getting back to where you were on the Web

Friday, June 27th, 2008

Question: when you’re looking for a website you’ve been to before, but haven’t put it on your UC List or in your bookmarks, what’s the fastest way to get back to it?

I’ve got a two-step solution for you, assuming you’re starting in an open browser. It works the same in Firefox and Internet Explorer.

1. Combine the command that puts the cursor in the address bar with the first two letters of whatever you’re looking for. If I’m looking for the Evite site, for instance for instance, I would say “Under Delta e v”

2. If the first choice is what you want say “Down Enter” to finish the job, if it’s the second choice “2 Down Enter” etc.

Posted in Patch on Speech, Speech Recognition, Tips, UC, Web | No Comments »

Solving the page down problem

Monday, May 19th, 2008

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:

1. Speech Command Problems
1.1 Page Down
1.2 Page Down Solution

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″.

Posted in Interface, Patch on Speech, Speech Recognition, Tips, UC | No Comments »

Friday Tip: Closing multiple browser tabs

Friday, April 4th, 2008

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″

Posted in Patch on Speech, Speech Recognition, Tips, UC | No Comments »

Friday Tip: Making a new folder in Windows Explorer

Friday, March 14th, 2008

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.

Posted in Patch on Speech, Speech Recognition, Tips, UC | No Comments »

Friday Tip: Filling out forms

Saturday, February 23rd, 2008

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.

Posted in Patch on Speech, Speech Recognition, Tips, UC, Web | No Comments »

Friday Tip: Removing formatting in programs that don’t have “remove formatting” functions

Friday, February 15th, 2008

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

Posted in Patch on Speech, Speech Recognition, Tips, UC | No Comments »

Friday Tip: Removing formatting in programs that don't have "remove formatting" functions

Friday, February 15th, 2008

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

Posted in Patch on Speech, Speech Recognition, Tips, UC | No Comments »

Friday Tip: Saving and making a new paragraph in one step

Friday, February 8th, 2008

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

Posted in Patch on Speech, Speech Recognition, Tips, UC | No Comments »

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