Using Voice Commands in Sketch

Be like Deckard the Bladerunner.

1982’s Bladerunner was the first feature film to show image manipulation using voice commands — seven years before the release of Photoshop, 27 years before Siri. Interestingly, the film is set in 2019, only two years away from now.

Here’s a reminder of the scene in case you’ve never seen this visionary piece:

Bladerunner was the first feature film to show image manipulation using voice commands.

In the scene, Deckard uses voice commands to control his personal computer. Using phrases like ‘enhance’ he can zoom in and out and track forwards and backwards. He even says ‘Give me a hard copy right there’ — resulting in the computer exporting a @3x resolution printout.

I wanted to try an experiment using Sketch.

Can Sketch handle voice commands? Yes, Dave. It Can.

I conducted a “Deckard Test”: Can I zoom in on an image and export a Sketch selection using my voice alone?

Check out the results below.

My Deckard Test

While the response times are fairly slow I have started implementing this in my workflow to call certain commands such ‘Hide Inspector’ and ‘Open Finder’. This is slightly less work to remember keyboard shortcuts. Gestural commands would be far more intuitive, but it is still pretty cool to control Sketch with your voice.

How to set up voice commands for Sketch

Set up dictation

This solution uses a tool called ‘Dictation’ built into OS X accessibility tools.

1. Open System Preferences > Keyboard and go to the Dictation tab.
2. Turn dictation ON and check ‘Use enhanced dictation’.

Dictation settings

Set up dictation commands

Now set up your commands.

1. Open System Preferences > Accessibility
2. Open Dictation from the sidebar and then click Dictation commands… to show the commands currently available.
3. Check ‘Enable advanced commands’
4. You may now add custom commands using the (+) button.

Commands

• When I say: is the phrase you say out loud to initiate the command
• While using: is the app you‘ll be using, set this to Sketch.
• Perform: You can choose a keyboard shortcut to be called or type in the exact Menu Items you want to be called. For example, type ‘Zoom In’.

Commands you may specify. This calls the ‘Zoom In’ command.

Here’s the results

https://youtu.be/Q4QbwO7ivAo

Enjoy feeling like Deckard!