On 16 Aug 2005, at 23:13, Jesse Ross wrote:
While all of these are really interesting concepts -- they either
require
the user to learn a new, memory-based input method (such as chord
keys or
morse), or the user has to learn a new "system" of typing. I
personally
don't know many people who use Dvorak layout, even though it's
proven to
be faster.
Actually, that's a common misconception. There is no evidence that
Dvorak is faster. What it does do is reduce the amount of strain on
your hands. I switched to Dvorak for a few months, but then switched
back because it was a pain having to move between Dvorak and QWERTY
all the time.
On the other hand, I know several people who absolutely swear by
graffiti (and were quite upset when Palm decided to drop it).
N.E. had an interesting concept using something like the iPod
scroll wheel
(obviously, due to patents, it couldn't be exactly that -- but perhaps
something similar). Basically, you start with a screen that lists
all your
letters, numbers, punctuation, etc). Using the scroll, you move up and
down the list. When you highlight the character you want, you
click, and
that letter is entered in your input box.
Interesting, but painful to use. Many games use this mechanism. The
problem is that selecting each letter is O(n), while on a telephone
keypad it's O(1) for most letters and O(n) in the worst case - and
it's a smaller n here because you're just dealing with punctuation.
The first few times trying to write words would be slow, since you
would
have to find every letter, one by one. The interesting part, is, after
you've created a word, that word gets added to your list. So, once
I type
'h', 'e', 'y', ' ', the word 'hey ' now appears in my list between
'h' and
'i'. If I then type 'hello ', my list starts to look like this:
...
e
f
g
h
hello
hey
i
j
...
Not bad. DeathTank uses the same completion mechanism for names.
Unfortunately, it doesn't scale. Consider the fact that the average
word length is around 5 letters (maybe less in an IM conversation).
You have one O(n) search for the first letter - maybe alleviated if
the letters were in probability rather than alphabetic order, but
this would make it harder to use (you couldn't aim for a general area
of the list then fine tune. Mind you, if the list is constantly
changing then perhaps you would lose muscle-memory anyway). The next
click is also going to be O(n) but in the best case could only be 1.
This would be interesting, until you realise that a lot of words (in
English, at least) have common roots, so you end up with a lot of
words starting he- or re-. This means you are having to do a minimum
of 2-3 O(n) searches, by which time I could have just typed the word
on my 'phone keypad.
Also, consider the amount of scrolling required, and then buy stock
in companies selling RSI treatments - this is exactly the kind of
movement that has been shown to cause RSI.
Ideas? Suggestions? Criticisms?
Replacing direct access with linear search is rarely a good idea.
It's bad enough when computers do it, but expecting users to do it is
very unlikely to go down well. The suggestion mechanism shows
promise, but it should be tied to a keypad not a list.
