Principal Investigator Supervisor Co-Supervisor

Edison Mukadah Dr Greg Foster Dr Hannah Slay

Background

• The ability to discretely, asynchronously and at a very low cost send a message from one mobile phone to another has now become commonly known as SMS (short message service) [MacKenzie,S,2002].

• Since the first SMS was sent in 1992, SMS transmission rates have escalated exponentially.

• Despite the phenomenal SMS transmission rates, the mobile phone key pad has remained limited in capability in terms of text entry convenience.

Traditional Text Entry

• Traditionally, text is entered on the mobile phone using the multi-tap method.

• For this method, the key pad has several characters mapped onto a single key.

• This mapping arises in typing delays as several keystrokes may be needed to output one character.

A standard modern telephone keypad

New Ideas• Developments have been made to improve ease of text entry using

several means.

• Several keyboard configurations have been implemented with the aim of reducing distance movement across keys when typing, so as to increase text entry speed.

• Linguistically enhanced techniques like the T9 ( Tegic Communication, Seattle, WA) and language prediction are also in use enhancing speed and accuracy of text entry [Mackenzie & Soukoreff, 2002].

Some Keyboard ConfigurationsBang and Olufsen Serene phone :A Circular keypad

Nokia 1100i:Standard keypad

Nokia E61i:Qwerty Keyboard

Text Entry Today• Recent developments in text entry have included handwriting

recognition.

• Voice recognition for text input at a developmental stage. Much research is still being done.

• Use of touch screens has led to development of virtual software keypads for text input.

• Use of detachable keyboards for faster text entry.

• Virtual keyboards using Bluetooth and Laser technology are also of much research interest.

Detachable Keyboard

Handwriting Recognition

iPhone: Virtual (on-screen) keypad

Interesting!!!

The problem

• The conventional methods implemented on affordable mobile phones lack in text entry speed and accuracy.

• Advanced text entry interfaces are usually expensive and highly specialised in functionality. At times they require certain procedural protocols to be observed before use.

• The project aims thus to develop an interface that combines the efficiency of advanced text entry methods and yet having the simplicity and convenience of use possessed by conventional methods.

Objectives• The project will explore a new paradigm in text entry input by

implementing a scroll wheel to replace the conventional cursor

keys.

• Onscreen keypad will be implemented. Navigation across

characters will be done using the scroll wheel and a character

can then be input into the message buffer using the Select key.

• A predictive text algorithm will also be implemented to augment text entry convenience.

TEXT INPUT AREA

PREDICTIVE TEXT

ALPHA-NUMERIC CHARACTERS

SCROLL WHEEL

SELECT KEY

SELECTED

CHARACTER

THE INTERFACETHE INTERFACE

Approach to study• Before embarking on the project, I am going to do an intensive literature review.

• This will lead to the development and testing of 2 virtual environments, one for the existing mobile phone interface and another for the new mobile phone interface with predictive text algorithm.

• This will require me to learn ActionScript, Flash Lite 2.1 and other salient facets of the Flash 8 Professional IDE.

• I will also familiarise myself with the Development Environments and APIs required for this project.

• Statistical tests will be done to compare the new system against the exiting ones.

• Qualitatively, a test on how users compare the system to the current ones in terms of usability convenience will be carried out.

• Quantitatively, the new system will be empirically tested with the current in terms of the 2 primary evaluation metrics for text input which are speed and accuracy[Gong,J,2004].

• Statistical tests to empirically determine platform performance using the metrics of speed and accuracy need to be carried after development has been completed.

• The data collection will all be done locally at Rhodes University since there is large enough a population to give an unbiased sampling population.

Information To Be Derived

• Project aims to produce a new working system of a mobile phone interface with predictive text algorithm.

• A decision may then be reached on whether the hypothesis that the new interface with predictive text algorithm offers better performance for SMS text entry compared to the existing ones.

ANYONE WITH A