December 27, 2006
3D Interface vs Voice Recognition
Which is more important to you: a 3D user interface or voice recognition? I've long waited with bated breath at every voice recognition advance over the years. It comes from being an armchair linguist. But 21 Talks points out that respected usability expert Jakob Neilsen says voice recognition is less useful than a 3D user interface.
This is an interesting comment and I have to respectfully disagree. I've studied learning methods since the late 1970s, and my impression from my research (including pre-grad school papers) is that most people have limited 3D hand eye coordination - athletes and video game players excepted. Older research stated that females especially didn't have much in the way of 3D visualization skills. This was later shown to be false, and that any child, male or female, who was introduced early in life to architectural toys such as Lego or Meccano could form 3D visualization skills.
Still, this is not the same as being able to use a 3D interface. It might all be a matter of conquering the learning curve, but until then, voice recognition seems to be rather more valuable and more immediately usable. It's also arguably far more advanced a technology niche, though there are still issues about accents and grammar to be conquered. Still, I won't say no to either type of interface.
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