From: Mike Ayers (mayers@celequest.com)
Date: Thu Jun 01 2006 - 18:07:10 CDT
Cristian Secară wrote:
> This (missing glyphs) is only a part of the problem. What I have said
> remains true from the user perspective: extended characters are more
> difficult to access from a phone keyboard, so very few people are
> willing to extend their typing time. This is particularily true if the
> user has to browse across a whole bunch of accented characters just to
> reach the one he needs. The Romanian language with stripped accents
> above / below characters is still well readable (or "understandable"),
> so users will take the shortcut without remorse.
Which is, I believe, the heart of the issue. Users of languages that
do not have a good keyboard/thumbboard arrangement tend to use "ASCII
hacks" out of necessity and habit. Given a good input method and a
little time, they would almost certainly switch, but the good methods
tend not to be available. A good example is the Vietnamese community,
which was very early and aggressive in adapting their language for
computer use, but which still relies heavily on VIQR for electronic
communication. What is extra baffling here is that VIQR would make a
great IME for proper representation, yet I have never seen it
implemented as such. Hopefully, human factors will see an elevated
focus in electronic communication in the years ahead.
/|/|ike
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