Effect of the Number of Candidate Characters on the Performance of Chinese Characters Input

Text entry is one of the most frequent human computer interaction tasks and Pinyin is most widely used in daily Chinese characters input. This research investigated the effect of the number of candidate characters in each line of display and the degree of usualness of target characters on the performance of Chinese characters input. A total of 18 participants took part in the Chinese characters input task under the different conditions that the number of candidate characters in each line of display was four, six and nine. The input duration time and error rate and the subjective evaluation were recorded during the tasks. The results of two-factor within-subjects ANOVA showed that the error rates of the three conditions of the number of candidate characters were not significantly and the input duration time when there was six candidate characters was significantly shorter than the conditions that the number of candidate characters was four and nine. The subjective evaluation result also showed that the subjects preferred the design style that the number of candidate characters was six when they were inputting Chinese characters. This result could be used in the interface design for the Chinese characters full Pinyin input method.