Ummo App (iOS): Speech Therapy in Your Pocket

Growing up, one of my worst fears was public speaking. I would dread alphabetical order, and revel in “reverse alphabetical order,” hoping that eventually, somehow, the class would have to move on to another topic before I was called to present my project (this actually happened on numerous occasions).

Fighting bouts of “uhs’ and “ums” for nearly two decades, it wasn’t until college that I really found my voice. Ummo is an app that seeks to help people find theirs far earlier, and for the most part, it achieves that.

With its very basic UI, Ummo gets right to the point—speak into a microphone and say something, anything, and it will identify filler words. I found that it was useful to look up famous speeches (some of a kingly manner, yes), or read a news story and try to sum it up in my own words. As expected, filler words were abound. The app focuses in on the big ones (sort of, actually, you know, I mean, kind of, right, Uh/Um, and basically), and displays them accordingly, breaking them all down in script form.

But amazingly, the app actually sums up your entire speech word for word, displays the time, pace (for example, 120 words a minute), pauses, and clarity (volume deviations). I didn’t think about it until after I had used the app, but pacing and pause calculations are extremely important. For the former, it helps me maintain a cadence or learn to shift how I speak to possibly account for a limited engagement, or a brief speech (say, at a wedding).