language for proposed unconference session

  Greetings,

Here's the proposed session for the unconference I said I'd hammer out 
at the end of our call:

*Proposed session for unconference*

*Adjusting to today's explosion of input methods*
Most of user interface development has assumed keyboard and/or mouse 
input. Three relative newcomers, however, promise to be increasingly 
present -- touch, speech and gesture. How important is it for the system 
to know whether the user is using touchscreen, keyboard, mouse, speech 
or gesture? How does a mix of input methods, whether or not each method 
is aware of the other, affect the browser and the user experience?

The user experience can be very different depending on input method. For 
instance, it's rare for a mouse user to have a focus-related issue even 
when system focus is badly implemented because the mouse user 
automatically changes focus to mouse location simply by using the mouse. 
This is different for keyboard and speech users.

Another example is the single-key keyboard shortcuts that are 
increasingly popular for Web apps. It's rare for a keyboard user to 
accidentally type more than a key or two in a situation where "a" 
archives a message and "n" goes to the next message, but if a speech 
user says a phrase in the wrong place, or if the speech system in 
correctly interprets a command as a phrase, several words worth of 
commands can be carried out instantly, and not easily reversed.

What should the browser be aware of in terms of input methods? What 
should the user be able to adjust to make the browser more aware? What 
can we do to make sure users keep the control of the system despite 
increasingly complicated situation with input?


*On a related topic...*

It also strikes me in looking at the session proposals, that with these 
two related sessions:
- What would make W3C more useful to developers
- Making W3C more useful for business

We've left out the third leg of the stool -- the users.

Cheers,
Kim


-- 
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Kimberly Patch
President
Redstart Systems, Inc.
(617) 325-3966
kim@redstartsystems.com

www.redstartsystems.com <http://www.redstartsystems.com>
- making speech fly

Blog: Patch on Speech
+Kim Patch
Twitter: RedstartSystems
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