Chinese pinyin phrasal input on mobile phone: usability and developing trends

ABSTRACT

Phrasal input is a Chinese text entry feature and just available on mobile phone lately. In the study, we compared usability of five Chinese pinyin phrasal input methods (Cstar, Guobi, Nokia, T9 and Zi) on mobile phones that represent two types: methods derived from PC pinyin phrasal input and methods derived from pinyin character input on mobile phones. The result showed that Cstar and Nokia performed the best followed by Guobi, T9, and Zi in order. We discussed the reasons behind and provided four design guidelines: 1) Find a balance between radical designs and well-accepted designs; 2) Optimize the corpus constantly; 3) Provide easy-to-use on-line phrase creation; and 4) Design a phrasal input method excluding pinyin selection process as PC pinyin phrasal input methods do.

REFERENCES

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  B. Hardware
  B.8 Performance and Reliability
      B.8.2 Performance Analysis and Design Aids

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)
          Subjects: Benchmarking

General Terms:
Design, Human Factors, Languages, Performance

Keywords:
Chinese, keystrokes per character, phone, pinyin, usability