A COMPARISON OF MOUSE AND SPEECH INPUT CONTROL OF A TEXT-ANNOTATION SYSTEM

An experiment was designed to determine whether speech input is a valu able alternative or addition to manual input. Subjects used both speec h and mouse input for control purposes in a document-annotation system . Speech recognition was realized by a speaker-dependent speech-recogn ition board. In separate sessions, subjects used either a mouse or spe ech interface, and comparisons were made between the two media in perf ormance speed, number of commands, and number of errors. In a third se ssion, subjects were free to use either input medium, and measures inc luded both objective (usage) and subjective (questionnaire) preference s for the two media. The main results were that: (1) 9 out of 24 subje cts used speech more than the mouse when they were free to use both; ( 2) 21% of the subjects preferred speech control, because it allowed ot her devices to be operated manually; and (3) 37% of the subjects prefe rred to control the system with both input devices available. Speech c an be a valuable addition to other input media enabling users to adapt their choice of media to specific task situations.