Is dictation really 4x faster than typing?

Every dictation product has a speed number on its homepage. Four times faster than typing. Five times faster. I make a dictation app, so I would love those to be true. They are not, quite. Here is the number I can defend, and where the bigger ones come from.

What is the honest number?

About 3x, for an average typist, before corrections. It comes from two measurements.

Typing: 52 words per minute. Researchers at Aalto University and the University of Cambridge collected 136 million keystrokes from 168,000 volunteers. The average was 52 wpm. Most people type between 30 and 60, and the fastest go past 120.

Speaking: about 150 words per minute. That is the average conversational rate for English speakers in the US, as reported by VirtualSpeech, which cites the National Center for Voice and Speech.

150 divided by 52 is 2.9. Call it 3x.

Where do the 4x and 5x claims come from?

They come from picking a slow typist and a fast talker. The vendor pages I looked at pair a typing speed of 40 to 45 wpm with a speaking speed of 220 to 230 wpm.

Neither number is made up out of nothing. Plenty of people do type at 40. But look at what each choice does:

• 40 to 45 wpm typing is below the measured average of 52.
• 220 to 230 wpm speaking is well above conversation. The same VirtualSpeech page looked at five popular TED talks, given by practised speakers. They averaged 173 wpm, and the fastest hit 201. A product claim of 220 or more is faster than the quickest of those talks.

Move both ends of a ratio in your favour and it grows quickly. 150 over 52 is 2.9. 220 over 45 is 4.9. Same activity, very different headline.

I am not naming the products, because the point is not that anyone lied. It is that a best-case ratio is being presented as the typical one.

What does the multiple look like for your typing speed?

It depends almost entirely on how fast you already type. Here is 150 wpm of speech against a range of typing speeds.

If you hunt and peck at 30, the 5x claim is true for you. If you are a developer who types at 100, you are looking at 1.5x, and that is before the next section.

What does raw speed leave out?

It leaves out everything that is not moving your mouth or fingers. Three things eat into the multiple.

Corrections. A speech model gets some words wrong. You have to notice them and fix them, usually by typing. A raw speaking rate counts none of that time. Names and jargon are the worst offenders, which is why a custom dictionary pays for itself.

Thinking. Nobody composes at 150 wpm for long. You pause, restart and change your mind. Typing has the same problem, so this does not favour either side much, but it does mean that neither 150 nor 52 is your real output rate.

The wait. Dictation tools take a moment to turn audio into text. In Gabble the text appears after you stop speaking, not while you talk. For a paragraph that is a small cost. For a three-word reply, typing wins.

What does the research say?

The best-known study found 3x, with a caveat that usually gets dropped. In 2016, researchers from Stanford, the University of Washington and Baidu had 32 people enter short phrases on smartphones. English speech input was three times faster than typing, with a 20.4% lower error rate. In Mandarin it was 2.8 times faster with a 63.4% lower error rate.

The caveat: that was speech against a phone touchscreen keyboard. It was not a test against a desktop keyboard, so it does not prove anything about dictating on a Mac. It happens to land near the same 3x as the back-of-the-envelope ratio above, but those are two separate facts and I would not stack one on the other.

So is dictation worth it?

Yes, for the right kind of text, and speed is only part of the reason.

Dictation wins clearly when the text is long and loose: a prompt to a coding assistant, a first draft, meeting notes you are writing up, a long email. You can talk through a thought in one go, and you tend to include more detail, because detail is cheap to say.

Typing wins when the text is short or exact: a filename, a one-line reply, a line of code, a password. And it wins in an open-plan office where you would rather not narrate your inbox.

A realistic expectation for someone who types at an average speed: on the text that suits it, you get words down about three times as fast, then give some of that back in edits. That is still a big improvement on something you do for hours a day. It just is not 5x.

How do you measure your own number?

Time yourself on the same task both ways. Take a paragraph you need to write anyway, dictate it and fix it until you are happy, and note the time. Do the same for a similar paragraph typed. That includes corrections, which is the part the marketing ratios skip.

Gabble's Home tab also shows your words dictated and words per minute, which gives you a rough picture of your own speaking rate over time.

If you want to try it, Gabble is free to download for Apple Silicon Macs on macOS 14 or later. If you are new to dictating on a Mac in general, start with how to dictate on a Mac.

Frequently asked questions

Is dictation faster than typing?

For most people, yes. Conversational speech is about 150 words per minute and the average typist reaches 52, so speaking is roughly 3x faster before you count corrections.

How fast does the average person type?

52 words per minute, according to an Aalto University and University of Cambridge study of 136 million keystrokes from 168,000 volunteers. Most people fall between 30 and 60.

How many words per minute do people speak?

About 150 words per minute in normal conversation in English. Presentations run slower, at 100 to 150, and audiobooks and podcasts sit around 150 to 160.

Where does the claim that dictation is 4x faster come from?

It comes from pairing a below-average typing speed of 40 to 45 words per minute with a speaking speed of 220 to 230, which is faster than people normally talk.

Is dictation worth it if I type fast?

Less so on raw speed. At 80 words per minute the gain is under 2x, and at 120 it is about 1.25x. Fast typists often use dictation for long, loose text such as prompts and notes, and keep typing for short or exact text.

Is there a study comparing speech and typing speed?

Yes. A 2016 Stanford, University of Washington and Baidu study found English speech input three times faster than typing, but it compared speech with a phone touchscreen keyboard, not a desktop keyboard.