Bringing Karaoke into Thai Input Methods on Mobile Phones

Sending message used to be a long and wasteful process. Currently, new technology allows user to send message to the others a lot easier and quickly. Therefore our work sees the significant of inputting method on mobile phone. Our study focuses on Thai language input methods on mobile phone. We focus on evaluating the usability of three methods of Thai text entry solutions on a 12-key mobile phone keypad, including the traditional method or Thai character typing in normal solution (Multi-press), using the predictive text recognition solution (T9 text input) and using English character typing in making Thai word solution (Karaoke) with novice users. Before the usability experiment starts, the KLM is applied to each input method in order to pre evaluate each method. It was found that users make more errors and mistakes with Multi-press and Karaoke than T9. Similarly to the KLM result, the results of this experiment showed that the T9 method is the quickest. Moreover, the users found it is easiest to use. However, this method is rarely used by the users initially. But when the method is introduced to the users and allowing them to learn how to use it properly, user can use it with great usability for users.