> But how? Even if those interfaces were actually working, it's still extremely inconvenient to talk when you can click
Working from home changes that. I can see many more opportunities for a multimodal input interface. Examples:
1. My fingertips now are closer to the "reply" button below this text area than they are even to the touchpad. Touching "reply" is half a second, moving one hand to the touchpad, aiming the pointer at the button and clicking takes longer. With a mouse: much longer. Anyway, my screen is not a touchscreen. I'll click.
2. Or, with an assistant, I could have said "Click reply", provided that the assistant knows where the focus is and that it can read the form I'm typing in.
Your fingertips while typing are even closer to the Tab and Enter keys on your keyboard, which, if pressed in sequence, have the exact same effect. Much simpler and much faster than either of your options.
Working from home changes that. I can see many more opportunities for a multimodal input interface. Examples:
1. My fingertips now are closer to the "reply" button below this text area than they are even to the touchpad. Touching "reply" is half a second, moving one hand to the touchpad, aiming the pointer at the button and clicking takes longer. With a mouse: much longer. Anyway, my screen is not a touchscreen. I'll click.
2. Or, with an assistant, I could have said "Click reply", provided that the assistant knows where the focus is and that it can read the form I'm typing in.