I remember reading years ago a jeremiad concerning the most common form of input device in use today on modern computers: the keyboard. In all fairness they weren't basing their complaints on the fact that the keyboard was everywhere or that it was old and ought to be outmoded for that reason alone but rather they were bemoaning the fact that after over a half century of technological advances it was needed at all. Why not voice or even brain input?
To some extent I felt the writer's pain. But when it comes to technology, at least when it comes to the advances we've made, I'm an optimist. I see the keyboard as a good thing. A keyboard adds a necessary level of precision to input which voice and thought doesn't currently allow. And I don't mean in relationship only to computer input. Think of how often someone misunderstands what you are saying or the difficulty you and I have in expressing our very own thoughts into words that must now be understood by a second party.
I don't mean to say that computers don't do a good job interpreting these things. Quite the opposite: they do just as good a job as we do for one another. Which is to say, computers get hung up on the very same problems humans get hung up on. So I'm not getting down on computers or voice and brain controlled UI. I'm simply pointing out that they are just as imprecise for computers as they are for humans.
A keyboard gives us that necessary abstraction; a sort of "QC" department for our thoughts. Not that it can't be misused or underused, but it is available and can allow us to format our thoughts accurately and precisely so that humans and computers can get a good picture of what it is we are saying. That is a good thing.
There also seems to be another silver lining to this cloud of technological sluggishness when it comes to UI development: It slows us down. Most of us with tight schedules working in the business world don't like to hear "slow down" but that fact is we need it. Thoughts fire off at the speed of light, but that doesn't mean thoughtful communication can do the same. More times than I can count I received strange messages from others texting me from their voice activated phones. True, emails can produce the same, sometimes hilarious, communication faux pas, but I've seen a trend where this occurs more and more with voice UI.
The answer is, of course, more accurate translation when it comes to voice-to-text interaction with machines, but if we aren't quite sure about what we are saying how will a machine put it all together?
Back to the writer I was speaking about at the beginning of this post. I think perhaps what they were experiencing was not disappointment as much as it was embarrassment. After all of these years, after all of the brain power and experience of thousands of brainiacs writing millions of lines of text and even more lines of code, after all of the optimism of a couple of generations have been poured into some of the greatest advances ever seen by humanity, we are still using the same basic input device our great grandparents used. I get it. It is a bit of a letdown.
Maybe, like bell-bottoms, avocado green and orange kitchen appliances and BC glasses we just need to give keyboards a little more time to be cool again.
In the meantime, I'll enjoy the connection with generations gone by and the precision it allows me when telling my computer what I want to say as oppose to my computer telling others what I meant to say. But like I said, I'm a technology optimist.
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