Could voice messages be a more natural way of communicating than text?
Sergej Gorišek
21 replies
I am building a new app for voice communication and am wondering if voice could be a better alternative than texting. Would like to start a discussion here. :)
Replies
John Smith@johnsmi52412940
Depend where you are located. Text is not subject to environment. Voice requires to be in quite place or have some headphones.
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@johnsmi52412940 DO you think that is the only shortcoming of voice communication?
I am a little biased with this response. I would like to see more experiments with text-based communication. Unfortunately, there is no serious attempt to improve that medium. And it's not like we will abandon the text in favor of voice or video anytime soon.
No matter what, the text is going to be our primary mode of communication. That's one reason why we are working on youremarks.com, @youremarks, to address the ambiguity involved with text-based messaging.
We are going live this week, Feb 18th, 2021. I want to invite you guys all to explore what we have to offer and share your feedback.
The truth is that text messages are much more easily transmitted than sound messages. No extra technology needed on your phone, etc. For example, the network was interrupted for a second, and the text had time to come to the phone and be read by the interlocutor asap. A sound will not have any time to sway.
Maybe depending on the context then there might be a use case for when people might not mind the message coming in a little later. Or do you think that because of the new technology trends the technology behind it could work better even for larger transmitted files.
Depends on the context. For discussion technical issue, I prefer text communiation. For casual chatting with other people, I prefer voice.
What does your inner monologue tell you
@rolodexter the answer could be yes. but i can't rely only on myself to come to a conclusion about this topic. I don't have enough data. That's why i'm asking :D
I personally prefer text: it is quicker and easier to look through and process. Voice needs additional steps, which is not ideal for me at least. Also text messaging gives you an easy conversation overview, which would be a pain if you have to listen (and click) through several voice messages. At the same time voice messaging has its advantages, especially when it comes to person identification or authorization, as mimicking person's voice is more complicated than their writing style.
It's a great idea. I usually send more voice messages than texts now. It's faster, and you can feel the mood. But yes I agree with @johnsmi52412940, voice messages need to be done in a quiet place.
@johnsmi52412940 @cica_laure_mbappe we need to figure out if sound can somehow communicate it's message in silence. :D
So, maybe. I absolutely hate voice mail on my phone. People leave poorly worded, slow messages full of ums and arhs. If you want to reference something you have to now listen to the whole thing again rather than being able to focus on the sentence you need like in a text message.
Actually no I've decided they don't work at all. Much better to write it down. Particularly when you have smart inline responses like in Memo.
If you receive a voice message do you send one back? Surely that's just now a voice-call? In my opinon async needs low bandwidth but high value so written communication. Sync needs high bandwidth so phone or video call.
voice instead of text?- hmmm... not always...
e.g. if I would travel by train in noisy envirovement, then I would rather text.
I'd like to say something, but don't want because someone else is sitting near by me- I would rather text as well.
I need to give URL address of a website, which is a source- again same story...
In other words I would never use voice only text messaging.
My team often uses loom.com to share thoughts. You can record your screen with your camera appearing in a small circle. As you navigate, you can talk about whatever you want to explain. It makes it really easy to communicate ideas or issues efficiently. The 2x speed feature is the cherry on top.
@jason_kiesling can you go more in depth about what specific use cases you're using loom for? what kind of thoughts are they? Are you reviewing and commenting on a specific issue? Sort of as a feedback tool? Or are they more general discussions and status reports and updates?
@sergej_nejc_gorisek They're pretty flexible. We've used them for all of those use cases you mentioned. They're really useful for anytime you either need to show yourself doing something or when it's easier to talk it out vs. type out an explanation. We use them for sharing bugs we find, design discussions, quick walkthroughs, etc...
it is not always convenient to listen to a voice message
Audio can be hard to hear, require more bandwidth to deliver, and take longer to consume. People might also be in public spaces where they don't want to play it.
That said, it would certainly be more personal and humanizing to send audio messages. If I were you, I would use both audio and text.
Part of the reason tiktok is so successful is because despite its emphasis on music, it doesn't actually require sound. Tiktok doesn't use your mic when recording, so you can make videos silently, and most videos have captions so they can be enjoyed without audio too. This hybrid approach also helps people overcome language barriers and difficulties understanding each other's accents as well.
I'm not sure exactly what this hybrid approach would look like for your app, but that's my two cents :)
Text forces people to be more concise and not ramble. So when I'm doing something that is task related liking coding I want something written down. When the environment is more casual or personal I like face to face interaction.
I would for text messaging tools to have an option to speed up (x1,5) voice messages though!