Voice activated software for advice work

Does anyone have any experience of using Dragon Naturally Speaking software (or similar voice recognition typing programs) to do typing? 

Does it save admin time?  Can it cope with the type of technical/legal work we do?

By all accounts, it does seem to require quite modern computers with at least 2 GB memory, but I wonder whether this could help advice agencies when funding is being reduced?

Any thoughts would be welcome before I buy the program myself.

I had it installed with Access to Work funding a couple of years ago. They also funded training on its use. (I believe AtW will no longer do this).

Anyway, it is very heavy on memory. Unfortunately I only had it installed on a laptop which couldn’t really cope and has become painfully slow. Plus I only have a shared office now which isn’t so good for it. I am now asking for it to be installed on a conventional PC.

On balance I found it helpful for long documents, when it seemed to be able to get up to speed. You are supposed to use Dragon exclusively so it gets trained up to your voice but in practice most people, I was told, mix and match dictation with typing when the programme gets stuck, if their disability allows. Once it gets things wrong it can take a lot of tries to get it right with well known risible results.

Mistakes were not excessively common though, if you can enunciate clearly. As far as I remember there is no alternative to spelling out technical phrases, citations etc - eg. ‘open bracket Income Support open bracket General close bracket Regulations comma Regulation 21 cap A cap A open bracket 4 close bracket open bracket k close bracket open bracket iii close bracket close bracket’. However they are always adding new features and I can’t say I have explored all the ones I originally had so there may be better solutions. Cutting, pasting and copying are straightforward though, often an alternative.

I can type, as I am now, but mostly left handed and it’s tiring. Having typed all that I’ve decided I would definitely like to have Dragon back.

Richard Atkinson

Many thanks for your comments. I have now upgraded my computer and have installed Dragon Naturally Speaking version 11.5.

Indeed, I am composing this post using this software. It has been quite a mission to change the computer and move all my software onto the new machine together with all my documents etc. I certainly would not want to try using the Dragon software on an older machine with a slower processor and/or insufficient memory.

So far I have been very impressed with this software – it makes writing so much faster. And is very easy to set up.

I do think it is worth considering for advisers to help improve productivity at a time of dire finances.

One hazard to be aware of is that we all tend to say much more when we dictate compared to when we type!