An Investigation of Text Throughput Speeds Associated with Pocket PC Input Method Editors

Abstract

Personal digital assistants (PDAs) are becoming increasingly popular in the United States and elsewhere. These devices are small, lightweight, and extremely mobile. One of the biggest drawbacks of PDAs has been the slow speed at which data can be entered. Researchers have studied the rates at which individuals can enter uncorrected text to a PDA using Palm OS software (Graffiti and the virtual keyboard). However, this is the first investigation of the speed at which users can enter corrected text to a PDA running Microsoft Windows CE. The results indicate that users are faster with the virtual keyboard than with the letter recognizer. Despite performance differences, users did not indicate greater satisfaction with the soft keyboard or the letter recognizer.