[Xerte] Text Entry Hints

Tue Nov 24 11:43:08 GMT 2009

After actually trying the thing a few times, I'd keep it simple and go 

- first letter
- add last letter
- Add some computed % of letters randomly  between them.
- Nothing more

Mainly because of the ambiguity of something like  

picked their way back into ____ and _____

house and home?
field and garden?
lock and nose?

First letter is crucial.

Subject: RE: [Xerte] Text Entry Hints
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:16:50 +0000
From: Julian.Tenney at nottingham.ac.uk
To: xerte at lists.nottingham.ac.uk

The problem will be gaining some agreement on an algorithm, and
I’d rather get something working whilst it’s still the 21st
century…

There are some glitches – because of this line:

newHint += Math.random() < 0.7 ? '_' : ans.substr(i,1);

it is possible that the hint is empty – or that it shows
all of the letters. Neither is desirable, so I need a better way of picking the
letters at random. Perhaps following some rules like:

-         
First hint: letters = Math.floor(wordLength / 4); //i.e. about a
quarter of the word’s letters are shown in the hint

-         
Second hint, add another quarter of the letters

-         
Third hint – add another quarter of the letters.

-         
No more hints – and if you keep typing the hint disappears
and you don’t see it again.

From:
xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Dave Burnett

Sent: Tuesday, November 24, 2009 10:57 AM

To: Xerte list

Subject: RE: [Xerte] Text Entry Hints

Glitch in the eval routine maybe?

In the second entry started to correctly type repair, but got hinted at
"e".

I think it is a much more engaging way to handle it.

AFA the algorithm goes, I'd be tempted to throw it in the lap of a language
development type. I'd figure there is some culturally dependent pattern of word
formation/recognition that might come into play and have a set of rules.

e.g. Show consonants first? Vowels? Final letter?

Seeing this is multi-language, it would also be interesting to see if there
were variations in the above between languages.

Reminds me of the "What do you see?" experiment where they took a
painting of a bull and obscured it with paint spackle.

Very few north americans/europeans could identify it, but as they moved closer
to the Mediterranean, the recognition rate started to rise.

But my favourite experiment is still Stanley Milgram's.

Subject:
RE: [Xerte] Text Entry Hints

Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:50:47 +0000

From: Julian.Tenney at nottingham.ac.uk

To: xerte at lists.nottingham.ac.uk

You can see what I have so
far at http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/~cczjrt/mediaInteractions/
- it’s on page two.

From:
xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney

Sent: Tuesday, November 24, 2009 9:29 AM

To: Xerte discussion list

Subject: RE: [Xerte] Text Entry Hints

Interesting problem: how to
generate the hints:

For example, the word is
‘interactive’, so generate successive hints like this:

_n___ac__v_

Int__act_v_

Int_ractiv_

Where successive hints become
more helpful, building on previous hints – or do we show a new random
hint each time, i.e.

_nt_ra_ti_e

I_t_r_ct_ve

In__ra__ive

So what are the rules?

-         
Need to wait for at least so many characters to be typed –
fixed or related to the length of the word – wait for more characters to
be typed before hinting longer words?

-         
Only show so many hints per word – but short words should
get less hints than long words;

-         
Only show a new hint once more characters were typed than the
last time we showed a hint – one more? Or several? Is this related to the
length of the word?

-         
Build the hint replacing characters in the answer at random with
underscores? Or always add n new helpful characters to the hint? Is n related
to the length of the word?

-         
Should the first character always be included in the hint?

Give it a whirl with a few
words of different lengths and you’ll see it isn’t so
straightforward…

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Dave Burnett

Sent: Monday, November 23, 2009 5:24 PM

To: Xerte list

Subject: RE: [Xerte] Text Entry Hints

>The handsets also have a
silly little game you can play  standalone that works like that.

Word-with-blanks. You type in a letter and it either fills it in or adds a
strike. 3 strikes, move on.

Hmm, wonder if there's a $1 appstore app hiding in there somewhere?

Do some gaming theory research and see if we can turn it into crack. 

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