Auto-complete Character Input with Voice Guidance Segmentation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Visually disabled users face difficulties in understanding and correcting character strings completed by auto-complete functions in character input apparatuses, as they cannot distinguish between input and suggested characters, leading to potential errors in character string input.
Innovation Solution
Enabling voice guidance mode to disable auto-complete function by default and using distinct voice tones for input and suggested characters, allowing users to differentiate between entered and suggested characters, and limiting auto-complete operations based on the number of suggestions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If the auto-complete function is enabled in voice guidance mode, then character input efficiency is improved, but visually disabled users cannot distinguish between input and suggested characters leading to input errors
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the character string into two distinct parts: the originally input character string and the auto-completed character string. This segmentation allows visually disabled users to distinguish between characters they entered and those automatically added, thereby maintaining input accuracy while preserving the efficiency benefits of auto-complete functionality.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements voice feedback that reads aloud the auto-completed character string with distinct characteristics. This feedback mechanism provides users with auditory information about what has been automatically added, enabling them to verify and correct the input if needed, thus resolving the contradiction between efficiency and accuracy.
2Speed
If the auto-complete function automatically adds completing suggestions, then character input speed is improved, but users cannot properly correct the auto-completed character string
Solution Approach 1:
By segmenting and clearly identifying the auto-completed portion of the character string, the patent enables users to easily locate and correct only the necessary parts. This segmentation maintains the speed advantage of auto-complete while restoring full correction capability.
Solution Approach 2:
The voice feedback system provides real-time information about the auto-completed portion, allowing users to understand what has been added and make informed correction decisions. This feedback maintains ease of operation even as input speed increases through auto-completion.
3Loss of information
If voice guidance reads all character strings including auto-completed portions, then completeness of information is improved, but voice guidance time increases for numerous suggestions
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and separately processes the auto-completed character string portion from the overall character string. By taking out this specific portion for distinct voice guidance treatment, the system provides complete information about auto-completed content while reducing total voice guidance time through selective and efficient reading strategies.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies partial action by providing differentiated voice guidance only for the auto-completed portion rather than uniformly processing the entire character string. This selective approach maintains necessary information completeness while minimizing voice guidance time, especially when dealing with numerous suggestions.
Data Source
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AI summary
A character input apparatus which makes it possible to suppress degradation of use-friendliness in a case where a visually disabled user inputs characters using an auto-complete function. In the character string input apparatus, a character string to be input as a portion following a character string input by a user is predicted based on the character string input by the user, and the character string input by the user is completed using the predicted character string as a portion complementary thereto. In a voice guidance mode, information associated with a key selected by the user is read aloud by voice. When the voice guidance mode is enabled, the character string input apparatus disables the auto-complete function and performs control such that a character string cannot be automatically completed.