Abstract thinking
Here’s my thesis abstract. Comments appreciated even (especially) if you have no idea what I’m on about.
Speech recognition software is often thought of as a easy to use interface that allows a person to talk to a computer instead of controlling it using their hands. Using speech recognition software is often presented in terms of “talk instead of typing”. Presenting speech recognition software as a simple matter of talking instead of typing ignores the difficulties involved in actually using large vocabulary speech recognition software in a productive work environment. This thesis began with the question: what would a speech recognition application for use live in the courtroom of the ACT Magistrates Court look like? To answer this question, a second question had to be asked and a thesis that I originally though would be a software design and implementation project became an ethnographically inspired one: What does productive use of speech recognition look currently like? Investigating the use of speech recognition software and discovering what made it usable became the focus of this project. This investigation led me to another shift in my thinking. When I started this project I thought that the usability of any technology was contained within the technology itself - that usability was inherent. Having investigated a particularly difficult-to-use technology I now believe that the usability or usefulness of any software product resides in the complex interaction of many factors both internal and external to a particular software product.
The basis of this research is two ethnographically inspired studies. In the first study, I observed and interviewed speech recognition users about their use of commercial off-the-shelf speech recognition software in various public service departments. Of the eight interviewees, six had some form of occupational over use injury and one was no-longer working. The major conclusion of that study is that the productive use of speech recognition software is dependant on many factors external to the software mainly contained within the work that is being performed and the environment in which the work is taking place. The second study concerned observing and describing part of the work process of the ACT Magistrates Court involved in sentencing. In this study I interviewed and observed many workers at the Court including Magistrates, Associates, Clerks and other people involved in the sentencing process. The outcome of the study of the Court was to recognise the sentencing process as one distributed in space and time between a large number of people rather than one that is performed by a single Magistrate sitting on the bench.
This thesis presents:
- A descriptive analysis of the use of speech recognition in two public service departments
- A descriptive analysis of the work of sentencing in the ACT Magistrates Court
- A novel design specification for a speech recognition system for the Court
- An approach to using various sociological approaches to study software and its use. In doing so I have shown that it is possible to use established theories from sociology to work with technology rather than inventing new approaches.
- A re-consideration of usability as contingent upon context.
yo, what about the advice from the Steve Jobs quote on the righthand side of your blog? relating to two crucial bits of your thesis statement: “for use live in the courtroom of the ACT Magistrates Court look like?” and “productive use of speech recognition look currently like?” is there a better way of saying ‘look like’ when I assume your ethnographic studies involve more than visual observations (namely audio! and spatio-temporal for the network stuff, maybe?? dunno!). Maybe introduce the notion of ‘experience’ or something? dunno? Also instead of “for use live” maybe you could use some commonly used buzz words for the uninitiated like “real-time use” or something? Fine line between nutech buzz words and academic jargon! I could email you some ideas if you want, this comments box is too small for thinking in. lol…
also ‘originally though’ should be ‘originally thought’, I think.
Comment by Glen — September 27, 2005 @ 7:38 am
Glen has pretty much commented on the bits that immediately sturck me, which are more niggly grammatical/spelling corrections, rather than real comment.
Context, I need more context. At least, I do if you want a half-way intelligible comment…
Comment by fro — September 28, 2005 @ 12:14 am
Well, it’s an abstract so it’s supposed to stand alone.
Comment by Ben — September 28, 2005 @ 12:22 am
Well, it “mostly” does. Myabe you should ignore me. I “accidentally” wasted 4 hours on wikipedia yesterday looking at Irish Mythology and Australia’s remote territories, so I always need more context…
Comment by fro — September 28, 2005 @ 1:19 am
oh, forgot to say that, without seeing the actual thesis and just knowing about your project from what you have told me, i thought it was a good abstract, covering all the bases and such.
Comment by Glen — September 28, 2005 @ 4:29 am
You use “speech recognition software” at the start of the first three sentences - sounds awkward.
There’s lots of odd-sounding “I”, “me”, etc.
It seems strange to me to explain the progress of your research in your abstract, unless that’s actually a necessary component of understanding the flow of work.
There is little about the abstract that actually tells the reader what the original contribution of your thesis is. The few dot-points at the end could be happily expanded a whole lot I think…
Comment by Kai — October 4, 2005 @ 8:21 pm
The “I/me” is not something I was originally comfortable with but it’s been something that I noticed in ethnographicly inspired theses. The comparative subjectivity means that you can “own” the research more and don’t have to appear strictly disinterested.
Describing the process/progress of the research is necessary (I feel) to establish why I’ve wandered off into ethnography when I’m doing an IT thesis. Though, yes, I could lose that whole paragraph.
Point taken about the bullet points at the end.
Comment by Ben — October 5, 2005 @ 12:08 am