Turning It On!

Hello, and welcome to Celebrate Creativity. I’m George Bartley.

In the last few episodes, I have been talking about Voice Control in a broader way — my own background, some of the reasons I care about it, and some of the larger philosophical questions behind it. What does it mean to use your voice to deal with a machine? What does it mean in terms of independence, creativity, and accessibility?

But now it is time to move a little closer to the ground.

Today, I want to talk about something very practical: how Voice Control comes with every recent Macintosh, how you turn it on, and what you are actually looking at when you face those settings for the first time.

Because that first encounter can be a little unnerving.  I remember the 1st time I saw voice control on the MacIntosh. I saw it as something just for disabled people and felt that voice control could not possibly do much that was useful. And I must admit, that I gave up after about 30 seconds, and said this is not for me. I had some erroneous idea that it was impossible.

But all that needed a little time on my part.

It's not that it was badly designed.

But simply because it was new.

And new things often look more complicated than they really are.

You go into the settings and suddenly you are looking at terms like language, microphone, show hints, play sound when command is recognized, overlay, fade overlay after inactivity, fade after, fade by, and Voice Control tutorial.

And if you are a first-time user, you may think: what in the world am I looking at?

And to be honest, even if you don't fully understand some of the settings by the end of this episode, you're doing about right. It takes a while to get your bearings, but it certainly is worth it.
So that is what I want to do today. I want to slow it all down. I want to describe what the user is seeing, what those items mean, and how to think about them without getting flustered.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Turning it on. Hello and welcome to Celebrate Creativity. I'm George Bartley and this is How to Talk to Your Macintosh. Now, in the last few episodes, I've been talking about voice control in a broader way. My own background, some of the reasons I care about it, and some of the larger philosophical questions behind it. What does it mean to use your voice to deal with a machine? What does it mean in terms of independence, creativity, and accessibility? But now it's time to move a little closer to the ground. You see, today I want to talk about something very practical, how voice control comes with every recent Macintosh, how you turn it on, and what you are actually looking at when you face those settings for the first time. Now, because the first encounter can be a little unnerving, well, I remember the first time I saw voice control on the Macintosh. I saw it as something just for disabled people, severely disabled people, and felt that voice control could not possibly do much that was useful. And I must admit that I gave up after about 30 seconds and said, this is not for me. I had some erroneous idea that it was impossible to use. But all that needed a little time on my part. Uh it's not that it was badly designed, but simply because it was new. You might say that all new things often look more complicated than they really are. You go into the settings, and suddenly you are looking at terms like language, microphone, show hints, and play sound when command is recognized, overlay, fade overlay after an activity, fade after, fade by, and voice control tutorial. What does it all mean? And if you're a first-time user, you might think, what in the world am I looking at? And to be honest, even if you don't fully understand some of the settings, by the end of this episode, well, you're doing about right. It takes a while to get your bearings, but it certainly is worth it. So that's what I want to do today. I want to slow it all down. I wanted to describe what the user is seeing, what those items mean, and how to think about them without getting flustered. Because sometimes the most valuable thing a teacher can do is not show off, it's not dazzle, it's not race ahead. Sometimes the most valuable thing a teacher can do is simply say, in effect, let's take this one step at a time. And hopefully that's what we're going to do. Now, on a recent Mac, voice control is built right into the system. You don't have to go out and buy some exotic software, you don't have to order a special program in a mysterious box, you don't have to pay extra. It's already there, part of the accessibility features of Mac OS. And I think that's, well, a very democratic theory. So the first step is simply to go into System Settings, the second item on the Apple menu, then accessibility, and then voice control under the motor item. So let me say that again. You go to System Settings, which is the second item on the Apple menu, then accessibility, and then voice control under the motor item. This is where the journey begins, and I do mean journey, because voice control is not just some little switch you flip and forget about. For many people, it can become an entirely different way of relating to the computer. Not better than everything else and every circumstance, not magical and not perfect, but different, useful, powerful, sometimes liberating. So let us imagine that the user has now reached the voice control settings. Oh, and by the way, this is not the first and only time that I'll go over these instructions. I feel an important part of education is to present the material in different ways, but in an entertaining manner. And later I'll have imaginary historical ghosts of the machine to explain the concepts involved in voice control and how to execute them. But that's on down the road. Now the first thing, naturally enough, is the option to turn it on. That sounds simple, and it is simple, but it's also important because this is the moment when the user is saying to the machine, I want to interact with you by voice. Now that's not a small thing. The moment you turn it on, the Mac begins listening for commands and dictation. And for some users, that can feel exciting. For others, it can feel a little strange, perhaps even a little theatrical. You're no longer merely typing at a machine, you are speaking to it. And this is something that may not really need to be said, uh, but uh you can use the machine as ri as you know like you ordinarily do. Uh just because you're not using a voice control command doesn't mean that uh your computer will not work anymore. But I do want listeners to understand this. Using voice control may seem a little odd at first, and that's perfectly normal. Of course it feels odd. Talking to a computer in a serious, sustained way is not how most of us were first taught to use one. But strange is not the same as bad. Very often, strange is simply the first stage of learning. In fact, the first time you turn on voice control, don't be surprised if your Mac says it needs to download something. That does not mean you are installing some strange new app. It simply means your Mac is getting the speech recognition files that it needs so it can understand your voice commands. Once that one-time download is finished, voice control can work without an internet connection. So if you're helping someone set this up for the first time, make sure the Mac is connected to the Internet. After that, voice control is not dependent on being online. That's exactly why it makes sense that Apple makes the user deliberately turn it on, choose the language, choose the microphone, and complete the first time setup download. You see, once voice control is active, Apple describes it as letting you speak commands to interact with the Mac. And apps and Apple's uh related voice control guidance includes commands such as go to sleep and wake up to pause or resume listening. That's a good reason that voice control simply doesn't start controlling your computer the moment you buy a Mac. If it were automatically awake and listening all the time, ordinary conversation might accidentally become computer commands. You could say something like, wake up, click that, or open this, and suddenly the cursor might start doing things you never intended. So Apple makes voice control something you or a friend deliberately turns on and set up. And by the way, I've turned off voice control uh to record this uh podcast, like all of my podcasts, because I don't want it to start doing things that I don't intend when I say a word that might be a command. Now let's look at the first setting, language. And that means exactly what it sounds like. What language do you want voice control to use when it listens to you and interprets what you're saying? For most of my listeners, it'll probably mean English, but even then it matters. You want the Mac set to the language you are actually using. This is how it knows what kinds of words, sounds, and commands to expect. So, in a very real sense, language is the foundation. It is the ground floor. If that setting is off, other things become, well, they may become harder than they need to be. Then comes microphone. Again, that sounds simple, but it matters a great deal. Which microphone do you want the Mac to listen through? The built-in microphone? A headset? Some external microphone? Now let me point out that I have a Mac 2 Mini and the speaker on that is really dorky, not loud at all, so I don't use the Mac Mini microphone, but instead an external Sure MB80 Plus. Now the other day I tried a 25-year-old Yeti Blue Ball stereo microphone. Using that old uh that old microphone to record a podcast resulted in really bad, bad sound. It was really terrible. But it was perfectly okay to use it for voice control, because voice control, well, it seems to me, is only concerned about the level of the sound and that words are clear, not that the sound is recording quality. I mean, you want the words to be clear and definite and speak them so that they could be understood, not like that. This is not an abstract technicality. It's practical. Which microphone hears you clearly? That is the question. Sometimes people blame themselves when technology does not respond well. They think maybe I'm I'm speaking badly, maybe I'm doing something wrong, maybe I'm not cut out for this. But sometimes the problem is simply that the wrong microphone is selected, or that the microphone is too far away, or that there is just too much room noise. This should be encouraging because it reminds us that not every problem is personal. Sometimes it's just a setting. It's not that it was badly designed, but simply because it was new. This is probably as good a time as any to go into a setting that Apple seems not to say anything about, and that is the sound setting on the left side of the bar, directly under system settings. Now, one day I was having a real problem with voice control understanding any of my spoken commands, and I went to ChatGPT, and I'll talk about the importance of that later. And I explained my problem to ChatGPT. I suggested that I go, uh it suggested that I go to sound directly under notifications and do two things. First, that I had chosen the microphone I wanted to use under input. Now let me stop here for a second. Think of output as sound that comes out and input as sound that goes in. That took me a long, long time, you wouldn't believe, for me to get straight. And very importantly, be sure that your input volume, which is the volume that voice control listens to, is really cranked up. I have no idea what a voice might sound like to voice control, but the important thing is that it be loud enough to hear. Kind of like expecting a keyboard to type words on a screen with the keyboard in another room. The computer itself doesn't sense the presence of the keyboard. And you want to be able to have the computer sense the presence as well as understand your voice. Not really complicated at all. Just speak clearly and directly with your input volume loud enough. Remember, speak clearly and distinctly, not artificially, but speak clearly and distinctly. And don't jumble or garble your words. Anyway, let's get back to accessibility, voice control, and hints. I like this setting very much because it suggests a certain generosity in the design. Show hints means the computer can offer suggestions on the screen about what you might say or do. And as a beginner, that can be tremendously helpful. Because one of the hardest parts of learning voice control is not always the commands itself or the commands themselves. It's that blank moment when you think, all right, now what do I say? Hints can help fill that silence. They can remind you, they can point the way, they can make the whole experience feel less like being thrown into deep water. So if I were advising a beginner, I would say there is absolutely no shame in leaving show hints on. Quite the opposite. It's a sensible way to learn. And then comes play sound when command is recognized. Now this might sound like a minor little setting, but it can actually make a huge difference. It means that when the Macintosh recognizes a spoken command, it gives you an audible signal. Kind of a little bit of positive reinforcement saying that you've got it right. Well, why might that help? Because when you're talking to a computer, one of the maddening questions is, did it hear me? Did it understand me? Did it recognize the command? Or am I speaking into thin air? That little sound can, well, pretty completely answer the question. It gives feedback, it gives reassurance, it tells you that the machine has at the very least recognized what you said as a command. Some people may find that comforting. Others may eventually find it unnecessary or even irritating. But for a beginner, feedback is often a very good thing. Then we reach a very important word, overlay. This is something that you're not going to work with right at first, but I wanted you to know that overlay is one of the ideas that makes voice control especially interesting and powerful. An overlay puts helpful information on the screen, like names, numbers, sometimes a grid, and we'll get later on into what all these mean, so that you can refer to what is on the screen more easily with your voice. In other words, it well helps make the screen speakable. And that's really rather remarkable. Instead of staring at a screen and vaguely wondering what to say, you're given visual clues. Perhaps numbers appear over items, and then you can say, click five, or names appear, and you can speak the name. It's a bridge between sight and speech. And again, all this I hope will make sense later on. A very practical bridge. Now some people will find overlays helpful immediately. Other people may think they make the screen look crowded. Both reactions are understandable. But the point is that overlay is there to help you get hold of what is on the screen by voice. Then comes the somewhat longer phrase, fade overlay after activity. Let me say that again. That means that if the overlay is visible and you stop using it for a while, the Mac can dim it, so it becomes less visually intrusive. And that strikes me as quite thoughtful because overlays can be useful, but they can also be very distracting and busy looking. So the system allows them to recede a bit when they are not actively needed. Then again, if all this seems a little confusing at first, well, you're doing about right. Once you understand that, the next two settings become much easier to understand. Fade after means after how much time should the fading begin. Fade by means how much should it fade? These two phrases sound similar, so they can be confusing at first, but the distinction is simple. Fade after is about when. Yes, practice certainly matters. There's a big difference about hearing a command and actually speaking it aloud. Reading or hearing about voice control is one thing. Using it is another. The tutorial helps you begin making that move from theory to everyday habit. And habits are what matter in the long run. Because the ultimate goal is not merely to know in some abstract way that voice control exists. The goal is to reach a point where using it begins to feel natural. Not effortless every second perhaps, not flawless, but natural. And that comes from repetition. So if I were summing up these settings for a newcomer, I would say something like this. What you're facing in that menu is not a collection of mysterious threats. It's a set of practical choices. Language. What language are you using? Microphone. How should the Mac hear you? Show hints. Would you like guidance while learning? Play sound when command is recognized. Would audio feedback help? Overlay. Would visible labels help you speak to the screen? Fade overlay after inactivity. Should those labels dim when not in use? Fade after. When should that happen? Fade by? How much should they dim? Tutorial. Would you like a guided place to practice? Now, unless you have a photographic memory, I think it would be a good idea to actually take this tutorial and use it and go through the tutorial with your Macintosh. So you can visualize these buttons and places, and it all makes a lot more sense. And I would like to say one more thing about the tutorial. If you have problems with it at first, well, again, you're doing just about right. Just keep doing it over and over, and after a few times it'll sink in and it'll get to the point where you perform a command on some text on the screen without even thinking. Sort of, well, you'll think that's the way it should be. You don't even have to think. I doubt that you'll get there the first time, but after a while the commands become completely logical and even second nature. Now, put that way, it doesn't seem so frightening, does it? And that's one of the things I most want to say of this episode. For many of us, technology is hardest at the beginning. Not because it is always uh genuinely difficult, but because we do not yet have a mental map. We don't know the territory. Everything seems equally strange. Everything seems equally important. Everything seems equally equally likely to go wrong. But once someone walks you through it, once someone says, this is what you're looking at, this is what this means, this is why it's there, suddenly the ground becomes firmer. You can begin. And beginning matters. Because voice control at its best is not merely about convenience. It can be about reduced strain. It can be about independence. It can be about access. It can be about making creativity and work possible on days when the hands are tired or painful or unreliable. And that is no small thing. Later we will go specifically into the practice of writing commands and dealing with specific vocabulary. But I'm saving those for future episodes. Later on, I would like to get more into the nuts and bolts, what commands you say, how they work, what happens when they go wrong, how to correct text, how to move around the screen and all the rest. But before you can do any of that, you need to be willing to walk through the front door. Today, that's just what we've done. We've walked through the front door. And again, I would really advise you a listening to this with your computer. We have looked at the settings not as enemies, but as jargon, not as some cold machinery meant to make us feel foolish. But as choices. Understandable choices. And perhaps that's enough for one episode. Well, this is George Bartley for Celebrate Creativity. How to talk to your Macintosh. Thank you very much for listening. And now let's have some fun. Very soon I want to go over this information again, but this time from the perspective of an imaginary historical figure, a lady who was the very first computer programmer. Again, thank you very much for listening to this podcast episode.