24-Jul-200

One area of dispute is how one communicates with a computer. Christian advocates a voice recognition system, while clbustos claims that people need to learn how to use a keyboard, much as they learn to use the pedals of a car. Here I agree with clbustos. I am English and when I first came to Spain I needed to contract some telephone services. Telefonica, the national service were experimenting at that time with voice recognition and in place of the interface where you push numbers in response to an automated voice, they simply asked you to state what you wanted. As soon as I heard their question, I knew that it (the system) wasn't going to work for me. Not only are there different Spanish accents, but here I was with an English accent trying to formulate a question in a language that I could not speak very well about an issue that I was not very familiar with and with words translated from English rather than from the Spanish community. Eventually a human being came on the line and I was able to make myself understood. How much more effective it is to use the web site to achieve the same results by clicking and typing things!

The argument is currently a bit confused because both correspondents are using the word 'simple' for two different concepts. One idea of 'simple' is 'anyone can do it without training' and another idea is 'consistency of interface'. Both correspondents appear to be calling for computers to become more effective. Christian's key phrase is 'computing for everyone' and he hopes this is to be achieved by hiding the complexity. clbustos' key phrase is 'computing should be simple', meaning that it should be consistent and he anticipates that people need to learn some things before they can use computers. For this generation, computing is going to be a struggle, but for the next, who have grown up with the keyboard and the mouse, the learning will take place at a young age and need not be harder than learning how to operate a car.

But note this, we still 'learn' how to use the controls of a car; the controls have not become more 'human' in the sense of mirroring what human beings do when they move about. They are consistent world wide so I can get into a new car anywhere and because of my training and previous experience know that the accelerator will be the pedal on the right (unless it is adapted for someone without the use of feet  in which case more training is necessary). Imagine if I had to say in the local language, "Go faster, please"! The voice and mechanism for talking just isn't the best control for this purpose.