Development of IME with Only One Switch for Physically Disabled Persons
Naruki Shirahama · 2017
It is essential for physically handicapped person to use auxiliary equipment for communication with others. We have developed a text input assistance application for mobile devices “RakuRaku IME” (“RakuRaku” means easy in English), the main user of this application is physically disabled person who cannot move his/her fingers and thumbs smoothly. The effectiveness of the function has been confirmed by index defined by us. As the value of the index C approaches 1, it signifies that the input was performed without needless controls. A better interface might have a variety of elements, however to present the results of this study numerically, in this case we simply defined an index that emphasizes input speed. We describe some features that we have implemented newly. One is the kana-to-kanji conversion function, which is implemented on the server. Settings of this app are often conducted by caregivers rather than the subject. Caregivers can manage the dictionary registration and priority of the word conversion on the server. The other is the setting function of character transition speed. We consider the character transition speed should be changeable. We also reexamined text input processes. Character input is done through stepwise and hierarchical selection, however there are a few problems that impede improvement of input speed. To verify the effectiveness of this system, we have done several experiments with various conditions set. We examine these results and discuss future work.