i’ve never been a big fan of voice interfaces and was not surprised to see the evidence in “A Visual Rather Than Verbal Future” that it’s hard to speak and think at the same time:

“”It turns out speaking uses auditory memory, which is in the same space as your short-term and working memory,” he adds.

What that means, basically, is that it’s hard to speak and think at the same time. Shneiderman says researchers in his computer science lab discovered through controlled experiments that when you tell your computer to “page down” or “italicize that word” by speaking aloud, you’re gobbling up precious chunks of memory — leaving you with little brainpower to focus on the task at hand.”

so now i’m in a classic conundrum. voice interfaces do seem to help reduce the repetitive actions that have exacerbated by carpal tunnel:

“Even while I was climbing the learning curve, ViaVoice had reduced my mousing by roughly a third in e-mail, by more than half in file management and by two thirds in Web surfing. Pain no longer shot up my forearm, and my hand also felt much better. For all the flaws and immaturity of voice control, its benefits now outweigh the hassles and the cost. “

the obvious questions would be – is the decrease in productivity associated with simulaneous talking and thinking less than the decrease in productivity associated with not being able to use the computer for more than five minutes without my right hand going numb?