Very clever new input concept from one of the guys who brought you T9. I was just simulating this on my keyboard and it’s surprisingly easy to do. Of course I don’t have anything to measure my accuracy, but I think the concept is fascinating.
Very intuitive. However, his last line references that users should not have to learn a new input interface on each device they use. Isn’t this just adding another option in the mix? Definitely beats normal key-letter-typing on a cell phone, though…
Noah
on 10 Sep 08
The application for iPhone is called shapewriter. Haven’t tried it, but I think I’ll check it out.
Kyle
on 10 Sep 08
Found that iPhone application. It is called Writing Pad.
On the iPhone Writing Pad app that does the same thing, there’s a little bar above the keyboard that lists options of similar words you can scroll through to pick the proper match. If it’s not there you can type it out letter by letter and add it to the dictionary for next time.
The interesting benefit of this method is that you don’t have to give the user another “option” on screen. One can still hunt & peck or swipe on the same UI with different results. As Jason says, fascinating!
I still use my Newton MessagePad 2100 every day and only rarely have to go to the onscreen keyboard, but if it had the option to write, swipe, or peck I think text input would feel extremely fluid most of the time. At the moment, when I’m writing and have to make a correction that’s not quickly made using the provided gestures (and under Newton OS 2.1, there are many and they’re very efficient), switching to the onscreen keyboard is like hitting the breaks.
I’d love to see this triad implemented in more touch screen devices (well, of tablet size, anyway).
Tried it with Writing Pad on the iPhone. It did a good job of getting the words right, but I didn’t like the feel of it. Still prefer to take notes with the iPhone keyboard.
Is it really faster or more accurate than tapping each letter? Doesn’t seem like it would be when you still have to home in on each letter. And if you hestitate to look for a key, does it misspell?
Mike
on 10 Sep 08
I’ve seen something almost exactly the same about a year ago but it was from IBM I think. Can’t find a link now… anyone know what I’m talking about?
ober
on 10 Sep 08
Thought you’d like to know that it served the wrong video in Bloglines. I watched some awesome basketball shots, but I just couldn’t see how that was related to a “clever new input concept” :)
I remember meeting a T9 rep years ago before T9 became standard in mobiles. I was working for the Finnish state telephone company at the time and the guy was visiting our booth at CeBIT to get our support in convincing Nokia to include the software in their phones. The phone company and Nokia were working very closely with each other.
So the guy shows off an early version of T9 on his own Nokia, and it was quite funny to see how people went from “I don’t get it, what’s the use?” when hearing his explanation about how it guesses words, to “Oh wow lightbulb just went on” when seeing it in action.
Which came first: Swype or ShapeWriter? I tried ShapeWriter (a.k.a. Shark or Shark Shorthand) for the first time in 2004.
Sean: double characters are treated the same way as single characters. E.g. if you try to write “pet” and the word “peet” is also in the dictionary (strange word, I know…) both words will have the same probability given your pen trace.
Dictionary based text input systems (as T9 and swype/shapewriter are) will always run into problems when you try to enter words not in the dictionary. With T9, it is quite easy to understand that a word is not in the dictionary. But with shape writing, there will always be a word that has a shape which is closest to your pen trace. How do you as a user figure out that a word is not in the dictionary?
Parent
on 12 Sep 08
have a look at http://www.mobiletextinput.com/
Demo’s of SlideIT can be downloaded in many different languages, besides the sliding capabilities it offers also predictions and graffiti recognition, and it perfecly works. Nothing new..
LLkp
on 14 Sep 08
So how does this differ from SlideIT???
The two methods seem identical to me! Check out
http://dasur.co.il/Download.php
This discussion is closed.
About Jason Fried
Jason co-founded Basecamp back in 1999. He also co-authored REWORK, the New York Times bestselling book on running a "right-sized" business. Co-founded, co-authored... Can he do anything on his own?
Josh
on 10 Sep 08That looks crazy intuitive!
Jakob Buis
on 10 Sep 08I’m gonna drop my HTC S710 and getting any device with a touchscreen right now
Kyle
on 10 Sep 08I know there is an iPhone application that does this. I can’t for the life of me remember the name of it though.
Nathan Moore @ Anthology
on 10 Sep 08Very intuitive. However, his last line references that users should not have to learn a new input interface on each device they use. Isn’t this just adding another option in the mix? Definitely beats normal key-letter-typing on a cell phone, though…
Noah
on 10 Sep 08The application for iPhone is called shapewriter. Haven’t tried it, but I think I’ll check it out.
Kyle
on 10 Sep 08Found that iPhone application. It is called Writing Pad.
Paul
on 10 Sep 08Wow. Just wow.
lmjabreu
on 10 Sep 08Humm, they cloned IBM’s SHARK? http://www.almaden.ibm.com/u/zhai/topics/virtualkeyboard.htm
alex
on 10 Sep 08This is an incredibly creative idea, although I think it’s something you have to see to understand. I can’t wait to try it though!
Gavin
on 10 Sep 08@lmjabreu
Notice the modified keyboard layout. Newest headline: Is QWERTY dead!?
josh
on 10 Sep 08I’d like to see an example of what happens when the word comes out wrong. It would seem to happen somewhat often, proper names, etc.
Nathan Youngman
on 10 Sep 08Awesome idea.
LBDG
on 10 Sep 08@josh
On the iPhone Writing Pad app that does the same thing, there’s a little bar above the keyboard that lists options of similar words you can scroll through to pick the proper match. If it’s not there you can type it out letter by letter and add it to the dictionary for next time.
Julien Couvreur
on 10 Sep 08Yup, that’s just like SHARK.
http://www.shapewriter.com/
http://jkontherun.blogs.com/jkontherun/2004/11/text_entry_epip.html
Morgan Aldridge
on 10 Sep 08@Nathan Moore
The interesting benefit of this method is that you don’t have to give the user another “option” on screen. One can still hunt & peck or swipe on the same UI with different results. As Jason says, fascinating!
I still use my Newton MessagePad 2100 every day and only rarely have to go to the onscreen keyboard, but if it had the option to write, swipe, or peck I think text input would feel extremely fluid most of the time. At the moment, when I’m writing and have to make a correction that’s not quickly made using the provided gestures (and under Newton OS 2.1, there are many and they’re very efficient), switching to the onscreen keyboard is like hitting the breaks.
I’d love to see this triad implemented in more touch screen devices (well, of tablet size, anyway).
Daniel Bushman
on 10 Sep 08Tried it with Writing Pad on the iPhone. It did a good job of getting the words right, but I didn’t like the feel of it. Still prefer to take notes with the iPhone keyboard.
Michael Zuschlag
on 10 Sep 08Is it really faster or more accurate than tapping each letter? Doesn’t seem like it would be when you still have to home in on each letter. And if you hestitate to look for a key, does it misspell?
Mike
on 10 Sep 08I’ve seen something almost exactly the same about a year ago but it was from IBM I think. Can’t find a link now… anyone know what I’m talking about?
ober
on 10 Sep 08Thought you’d like to know that it served the wrong video in Bloglines. I watched some awesome basketball shots, but I just couldn’t see how that was related to a “clever new input concept” :)
Alex Cabrera
on 10 Sep 08I was playing around with an iPhone app a while back that did something similar, ShapeWriter.
It was cool for a while, but I wasn’t nearly as fast with it as I was with the regular tapping keyboard. Still an interesting concept.
B. Ackles
on 10 Sep 08I saw this yesterday and I immediately I thought you’d write about it.
Always on the cutting edge of design. That’s why I read this blog.
Henrico Dolfing
on 11 Sep 08I agree totally with you that the concept is very fascinating. Unfortunately there are allready two other companies that did the same.
On my blog I placed a video of all three (WritingPad, Swype and SlideIT). Spot the differences… I could not find them.
I bet the underlying algorithms are different, but this story is going to be continued when it comes to the intelectual property question.
Tim Jahn
on 11 Sep 08I’m curious as to how accurate this approach is for an everyday user. Looks like fun though!
Stephan
on 11 Sep 08I remember meeting a T9 rep years ago before T9 became standard in mobiles. I was working for the Finnish state telephone company at the time and the guy was visiting our booth at CeBIT to get our support in convincing Nokia to include the software in their phones. The phone company and Nokia were working very closely with each other. So the guy shows off an early version of T9 on his own Nokia, and it was quite funny to see how people went from “I don’t get it, what’s the use?” when hearing his explanation about how it guesses words, to “Oh wow lightbulb just went on” when seeing it in action.
Sean McCambridge
on 11 Sep 08Very cool. But what about double-letters? I’ve been trying to figure that out. How would you swype Mississippi? I mean, he did it. But how?
daniel lopes
on 11 Sep 08amazing
Kpax
on 11 Sep 08Which came first: Swype or ShapeWriter? I tried ShapeWriter (a.k.a. Shark or Shark Shorthand) for the first time in 2004.
Sean: double characters are treated the same way as single characters. E.g. if you try to write “pet” and the word “peet” is also in the dictionary (strange word, I know…) both words will have the same probability given your pen trace.
Dictionary based text input systems (as T9 and swype/shapewriter are) will always run into problems when you try to enter words not in the dictionary. With T9, it is quite easy to understand that a word is not in the dictionary. But with shape writing, there will always be a word that has a shape which is closest to your pen trace. How do you as a user figure out that a word is not in the dictionary?
Parent
on 12 Sep 08have a look at http://www.mobiletextinput.com/
Demo’s of SlideIT can be downloaded in many different languages, besides the sliding capabilities it offers also predictions and graffiti recognition, and it perfecly works. Nothing new..
LLkp
on 14 Sep 08So how does this differ from SlideIT??? The two methods seem identical to me! Check out http://dasur.co.il/Download.php
This discussion is closed.