Products · Pattern or everyday thing
Voice user interfaces
Raised as a usability problem by 9 people on Hacker News over 12 years (2013–2024), in 9 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads in the last 5 years.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Voice interfaces are awkward in public and slower than typingUnreviewed
20132026- Controlling a computer by voice is slow, ambiguous, and less precise than mouse selection2024-12-17
- Existing voice-to-text options feel clunky and slow, with extra steps involved2023-05-08
- Users can't discover what voice control can do, and failed attempts waste time2021-04-26
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 9 complaints
- Controlling a computer by voice is slow, ambiguous, and less precise than mouse selection2024-12-17
- Existing voice-to-text options feel clunky and slow, with extra steps involved2023-05-08
- Voice assistants misunderstand accented speech and mispronounce place names2022-10-23
- Users can't discover what voice control can do, and failed attempts waste time2021-04-26
- Multi-word speech commands are slow, error-prone and distracting compared to buttons2020-06-03
- Voice control is so unreliable it distracts more than touching buttons2019-09-24
- Voice interfaces are awkward in public, unreliable, and slower than typing or mousing2018-07-12
- Voice interfaces handle corrections poorly, unlike spoken conversation2018-02-14
- Voice control is awkward for normal operation and adds noise and intrusion2013-01-04