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''You can talk faster than you can type, but you can read faster than you can listen.''

'''Macfarlane's Law''' of Disparate Communications was coined in the late 1970s while David Macfarlane was working for [[B-NSR]] in the Office Information Communications Group. The law highlights the disparity between keyboard input in office systems and the speed at which users speak. It previewed the importance of speech recognition as one way of mitigating this disparity.

Typing speeds average around 60 words per minute; an average talking speed is typically 150 words per minute. A good reading speed, without speed-reading techniques is about 600 words per minute, and most people can listen as fast as any speaker can talk.

The disparity of communications referred to by Macfarlane's Law is that it takes the average person a fraction of the time to say something instead of type it, but the recipient of the message can read it much faster than they can listen to it.

The alternate version of this is "You can talk faster than you can type, but you can't listen as fast as you can read."

==References==
*[http://www.handyfacts.com/commnet.html Appearance in a Modern Web Site]
*unpublished slide presentation to Diebold Office Automation Program workshop, 1980⏎
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