System and method for improving text input in a shorthand-on-keyboard interface

Abstract

A word pattern recognition system improves text input entered via a shorthand-on-keyboard interface. A core lexicon comprises commonly used words in a language; an extended lexicon comprises words not included in the core lexicon. The system only directly outputs words from the core lexicon. Candidate words from the extended lexicon can be outputted and simultaneously admitted to the core lexicon upon user selection. A concatenation module enables a user to input parts of a long word separately. A compound word module combines two common shorter words whose concatenation forms a long word.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application relates to the following co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10 / 325,197, titled “System and Method for Recognizing Word Patterns Based on a Virtual Keyboard Layout,” Ser. No. 10 / 788,639, titled “System and Method for Recognizing Word Patterns in a Very Large Vocabulary Based on a Virtual Keyboard Layout,” and Ser. No. 11 / 121,637, titled “System and Method for Issuing Commands Based on Pen Motion on a Graphical Keyboard,” all of which are assigned to the same assignee as the present application, and are incorporated herein by reference. FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0002] The present invention generally relates to lexicon-based text entry and text prediction systems. More specifically, the present invention relates to text entry using shorthand-on-keyboard, an efficient method of entering words by drawing geometric patterns on a graphical on-screen keyboard. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0003] Shorthand on graphical key...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0014] The core lexicon allows the present system to target commonly used words in identifying a gesture as a highest-ranked candidate word, providing more robust recognition performance associated with a smaller lexicon. Only words from the core lexicon can be directly outputted in the present system. Additional candidate words are available from the extended lexicon, allowing a user to find lesser-known words on the candidate list, but only through menu selection. The present system enhances word recognition accuracy without sacrificing selection of words from a large lexicon. The core lexicon provides more flexibility and tolerance for the input of the user to be imprecise and inaccurate from the ideal form of the intended input choice.

[0017] The present system reduces the overhead inflicted upon the user in the case the word gestured by the user is not in the vocabulary of the core lexicon. Instead of being unsure whether the word is included in the lexicon or if the system misrecognized the input, the user can scan the N-best list and select the desired candidate word.

Problems solved by technology

A lexicon that is either too large or too small can introduce problems to the user.

A larger lexicon could present certain challenges, since it tends to reduce the recognition accuracy due to the likelihood of a greater number of distracters for each user input.

For other users, these specialized terms can be irrelevant and can introduce noise in the recognition process, making the recognition process less robust.

This is especially important in mobile devices where processing power is severely limited.

However, when a small lexicon does not contain the word the user needs, the user experience can be frustrating.

A user does not know, prior to entry, whether a word is in the lexicon, causing uncertainty for the user.

The lack of recognition of a word by a conventional system can occur either when the word is input incorrectly or when the word is not in the lexicon.

Consequently, it can be difficult for the user to determine why a word is not recognized.

The downside of a language model approach is generally the overhead of creating and making efficient use of a large language model.

Moreover, a language model can introduce errors and mistakenly filter out the intended words.

In practice, efficient customization of a language model is difficult.

Furthermore, a language model is difficult to integrate with a recognition technique that already has a high precision, such as shorthand-on-keyboard.

Although this approach does result in a lexicon more closely tailored to a specific user, a previously written corpus generated by a user may be to be too small to cover all of the desired words.

Furthermore, in practice, it is difficult to write a computer program code that can open and read all and various email and document formats that the user may be using.

This approach often requires the user to locate and select the previous written documents, which is inconvenient for the user.

A customized lexicon may also be difficult to carry over across different devices.

Consequently, a larger lexicon corresponds to less flexibility and robustness to the user.

Another challenge to a conventional shorthand-on-keyboard input method is a requirement of entering text exactly at the word level, one word at a time.

For relatively new users, it can be cognitively difficult to draw a long word with shorthand-on-keyboard in one stroke.

This difficulty is particularly acute in some European languages in which compound long words are more common than in English.

The need for such a solution has heretofore remained unsatisfied.

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