Text input disambiguation supported on a hierarchical user model

Abstract

Mobile phones are used for various tasks that go far from voice communication. A popular use is for composition of short messages (SMSs), but other applications are also available like email, agenda, contact, and note management. All these uses have in common the need for text input on a small keyboard with ambiguity problems.Various techniques are currently used for input disambiguation, with variable results in terms of usability and efficiency. Some techniques achieve good performance with messages composed by words from a dictionary but poorly when a significant number of words are not in memory.In this paper we present a solution for text disambiguation supported on a general model for disambiguation plus a user model generated from previous messages sent by the user. We present results obtained with this approach and discuss future improvements.