Graffiti Allows Users to Write Almost Any Character
Graffiti covers many characters which are impossible to achieve with
current recognition technology including accented characters,
punctuation and symbols. Capitalization, punctuation, numbers and
symbols are handled similarly to a keyboard. When the user wants
to input a capital letter in Graffiti, they "shift" Graffiti into uppercase
through a simple upstroke. The letter following the upstroke is then
capitalized. Graffiti has shifts for caps lock and numbers, enabling
users to enter strokes similar to the actual characters of the Roman
alphabet without confusing a "1" and an "I", or a "5" and an "S".
These strokes are never confused by the Graffiti system.
"We've been very impressed with the completeness of the Graffiti
system," said, Richard C. Watts, vice president and general manager
of Hewlett Packard's Personal Information Products Group. "Graffiti
provides easy access to accented characters, symbols and
punctuation which are difficult to achieve with standard recognition
systems."
Graffiti Enables Future Generation of Pocket Sized Devices
Because Graffiti provides an immediate response to each stroke of
the pen, users do not need to write out words or sentences, but rather
can write one character on top of another. By not looking at the
screen, the Graffiti user can concentrate on the speaker or
the document they are transcribing. Further, since the user can write
in a small area on the screen, wide acceptance of Graffiti may result
in the development of smaller devices with smaller screens for
entering data.
"Graffiti is a significant technology breakthrough which enables
development of pocket-sized devices with robust
data input capabilities," said Doug Brackbill, vice president, Mtel
AdvancedApplications Group. "We think Graffiti will spur the growth of
new markets for wireless messaging."
Through the use of Graffiti's ShortCuts (TM) large blocks of text can
be entered into the system with a few pen strokes. With ShortCuts a
user can build a library of frequently used phrases, and easily recall
any of them with a few strokes of the pen. For instance, the user may
create a thank you note which they often fax to customers. By
inputting the ShortCuts "shift" stroke and, for example, "th" for thank
you, Graffiti will recall the entire predefined block of text.
Graffiti User Testing Shows High Level of Satisfaction
Palm Computing conducted extensive user testing with Newton and
Zoomer owners, as well as non-PDA users. Ninety five percent of test
subjects who owned a Newton or Zoomer wanted Graffiti after testing.
Ninety seven percent of the Graffiti alphabetical characters were
recalled by users after a week of non-use. Several device
manufacturers have conducted their own user testing and found
similar results.
"Our Graffiti user testing has been overwhelmingly positive," said Ed
Colligan, vice president marketing for Palm Computing. "Nearly all
users tested learned the system in under 20 minutes and became
proficient in less than 2 hours. Most users showed an extremely high
level of satisfaction. These results lead us to believe that Graffiti will
become a major method of data entry for pocket-sized computers."
Graffiti is based on Palm's patented recognition algorithms. Palm
has other patents pending on broad elements of Graffiti's unique
functionality.