Alexandru Bolboaca-Diaconu

Writing without keyboard

Saturday, 17. May 2008, 10:23:57

ideas, human computer interaction, gestures, languag, keyboard

On Thursday night, I had my first contact with a Mac. And it sure was memorable.

I wrote before that we were planning of buying a MacBook Pro notebook. It finally arived last week, and it was everything we expected, and more.

I'm a technology guy. I looked at it and knew instantly that it runs ~~Linux~~ Unix/FreeBSD/NetBSD (thanks for the correction) under the hood and that it's a powerful piece of hardware. But what leaves a long lasting impression is the looks and the usability. Hats off to you, Mr. Jobs!

There are many things to say about Apple computers and about the attention to detail shown by its engineers. But I will concentrate on one thing: the multi touch pad gestures. To me, this is one of the best usability innovations in the latest years.

If you don't know what it's about, take a look here.

Using this feature comes very natural and very handy. And it made me think of other possibilities.

If you read my blog, you probably know already that I like to read and that I like good SF litterature. It so happens that now I'm reading the prequel of the Dune series, and it brought me back to one of the most compelling imaginary universes that I know about. I couldn't help but link the idea of the multi touch gestures with the Bene Gesserit gesture language.

And then I thought: Why wouldn't we use hand gestures to write with the touchpad instead of the keyboard?

Now, I'm not an expert in languages or in other communication mediums (except maybe computer protocols). But with the advent of mobile devices, we should think of better ways of writing than keyboard. Keyboard is becoming obsolete, and mobile users need the same power as you and I have when we stay in front of our PCs or notebooks. And this is an effective way to get that power.

I would imagine that in the beginning such a language would have a gesture for each letter or sound. In time, gestures for commonly used words would appear and maybe even for short sentences. This could mean in theory that at some point this language may become an international language, understandable in all corners of the Earth - if you don't know the local language.

Would I learn such a thing? Probably. But I think that at first only young people will learn it. Therefore, it's a long term engagement. This could mean that, despite its usefulness, this idea may never come to life.

But if you're an expert in human communication or in human-computer interaction and you happen to get lost on the Internet and read this blog entry, start researching it and let me know what you get. I'm definitely interested

Personal advertisement: I am PassionIT and I help teams develop high quality software. I train, I help improving and I work hands-on, depending on the needs. Contact me if you need help. Alexandru Bolboaca-Diaconu

Keep It Simple, Stupid (!)Cheering vs. Getting Involved in an Open Source Project

Comments

Anonymous # 18. May 2008, 21:07

Bill Chapman writes:

What an interesting contribution! I'm not sure that a technological solution is necessary. I would like to argue the case for Esperanto as the international language.

It is a planned language which belongs to no one country or group of states. Take a look at www.esperanto.net

Esperanto works! I've used it in speech and writing in a dozen countries over recent years.
Indeed, the language has some remarkable practical benefits. Personally, I've made friends around the world through Esperanto that I would never have been able to communicate with otherwise. And then there's the Pasporta Servo , which provides free lodging and local information to Esperanto-speaking travellers in over 90 countries. In the past year I have had guided tours of Berlin and Milan in the planned language. I have discussed philosophy with a Slovene poet, humour on television with a Bulgarian TV producer. I've discussed what life was like in East Berlin before the wall came down, how to cook perfect spaghetti, the advantages and disadvantages of monarchy, and so on. I recommend it, not just as an ideal but as a very practical way to overcome language barriers.

What do you think of Esperanto?

claudeb # 19. May 2008, 04:23

Before some obsessed geek starts flaming you: MacOS X isn't based on Linux, but a combination FreeBSD/NetBSD userland with a Mach-derived kernel.

Regarding writing by gestures, I can tell you've never used a PDA for any significant length of time.

Writing a letter is a lot more lenghty and involved than pressing a key (even if you have to press it 3 times on a cellphone keyboard). Add the possibility of error - recognition software is hardly reliable, much less perfect - and suddenly writing a Twitter entry becomes a chore.

Now, having a symbol for each word should be indeed simpler. Even with current cellphone keyboards it's much easier to thumb Japanese than English, thanks to Huffman encoding and text prediction. But first you need to spend 5 years learning to write Japanese correctly.

Bill: when you're lost in a foreign city and you need to ask for directions, what language do you try first? Esperanto? Nah, I'll bet it's English. So much for artificial languages. No offense intended, Esperanto is neat, but it's the realm of academics.

P.S. Alex, you're not the first guy to think keyboards are obsolete. Voice recognition software has been under development for years. It never took off. Can you tell why? As for touchscreens, remember when Microsoft thought tablet PCs would replace laptops? Same story.

alex_boly # 20. May 2008, 09:34

I'm not talking about actually writing the letters as we know them on the touchpad; I'm talking about creating a gesture for each letter, which is not necessarily the letter.
I could imagine gestures like:
/ for A
\ for E
- for I

and so on. But I'm certainly not the person to do that, because I don't have enough expertise.

There are may reasons why voice recognition doesn't work: errors, noise a.s.o. But things are completely different with a touchpad. It can already recognize lots of gestures, and, as Apple shows, it can become better.

But again, this is just an idea. Opinions are welcome.

P.S: Esperanto doesn't really work. Get over it.

claudeb # 20. May 2008, 16:19

I suppose you've already seen the Wikipedia page on stenography? It gives interesting insights into what might work and what would probably not.

BrianBarker # 24. May 2008, 12:48

If Esperanto does not work why has Baldur Ragnursson, from Iceland, been nominated for the Nobel Peace for Literature this year?

Your might like to check Professor Piron's youtube on the whole subject, generally. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YHALnLV9XU

As you can see. Esperanto does work

alex_boly # 27. May 2008, 07:57

I know that Esperanto has its advantages, being easy to learn, flexible, logical, with no exceptions and so on, but it has a major, insurmountable drawback: it has no underlying culture. It's dry. It's like talking to your brother by using mathematical symbols. It's not the result of a natural evolution, but it's rather a language experiment on humans.

This blog is about the human factor and about its outmost importance in any software development project. I started to write it because so many managers from the software domain fail to take into account the human factor. I would expect that language specialists understand its importance. Esperanto is for me a clear proof of the fact that some don't.