Japanese UI Analysis, MacOS X Analysis, Action Items

Thu Mar 19 04:31:57 UTC 2009

Monday, March 16th, 2009 Warren Togami and Maureen Duffy conducted a 
user interface analysis with a native Japanese user.  Windows IME, 
ibus-anthy and ibus-anthy were compared.  The test subject is named 
Kumiko, who formerly worked in a Japanese financial institution and is 
familiar with ATOK on Windows XP.  Our goal was to analyze the use 
expectations of an "ordinary user" without technical background.  Warren 
Togami subsequently did some exploration of the IM software in the 
latest version of MacOS X.  Many bugs were filed from this analysis. 
Further action items are proposed below but require discussion before we 
can file bugs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_input_keys
Describes Input keys on Japanese and Korean keyboards

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/showdependencytree.cgi?id=ibus&hide_resolved=1
http://tinyurl.com/fedora-ibus-bugs
ibus bug trackers

Japanese Specific Bugs
======================
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=491042
ibus-anthy global activators by default: 半角/全角 or ALT-` or ALT-半角/ 
全角 or 無変換 + 半角/全角
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=488666
ibus-anthy candidate selection should be vertical
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=491040
ibus-anthy candidate selection lacks Pg-Up, Pg-Down and scrollbar
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=490748
ibus-anthy katakana button doesn't do anything
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=490747
ibus-anthy 無変換 Non-conversion button fails to undo conversion in 
pre-edit buffer
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=490750
ibus-anthy 変換 Conversion candidate button doesn't do anything
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=491041
ibus-anthy Register Words interface missing

Korean Specific Bugs
====================
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=487269
ibus-hangul is missing Hanja Conversion
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=486056
ibus-hangul missing options for 2bul, 3bul and other Korean layouts

General ibus Bugs
=================
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=490381
change "Next/Previous engine" labels to "Next/Previous input method"
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=477918
ibus failures with pidgin?
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=490013
ibus - Next Engine hotkey really good idea for anyone?
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=490009
ibus - Deleting Next Engine shortcuts doesn't work
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=491043
ibus Enable IM engine for particular language automatically

Other Bugs that need discussion
===============================
TODO: Implement standard template for help files for ibus, and localize 
it (MacOS X has a great example of this done right)
TODO: CTRL-Space is annoying to Japanese and Korean IM, Propose 
Inherited Hotkey Activator Plan
TODO: ibus-anthy Determine which options are important that need 
configuration options
TODO: ibus-hangul Determine which options are important that need 
configuration options
TODO: ibus-anthy Implement pre-conversion auto-learning predictive 
candidate input (think cell phone, read below)
TODO: Investigate dead key fallbacks work properly?
TODO: ibus hotkey activators sometimes fail completely in gnome-terminal 
or tomboy, while they work in other apps

Miscellaneous Notes
===================
• Kumiko did not knowingly change any settings, used default IM shipped 
on her computer: ATOK.
• Windows IME was very similar to ATOK to the point she didn't realize 
it was different at first.
* SCIM's interface was almost identical to Windows IME with button 
behavior, with the exception of activator hotkeys being equally broken 
from the perspective of ordinary user expectations.

Activator Hotkeys
=================
• Windows IME does not seem to have "Global" activator hotkeys.  Hotkeys 
change depending on which IM is active at a the moment in the language 
bar.  For example, if Japanese is the current active IM, then ALT-` 
works as an activator but not CTRL-Space.  Conversely, if Pinyin is the 
current IME, CTRL-Space works.  There might be merit in changing our 
hotkey behavior to be like this instead of our global hotkeys that try 
to please everyone, but end up annoying everyone.  Discussion?  (Note 
below that MacOS X has no activator hotkeys.)
• ALT-` is bound to "bring up the text-mode menu" in emacs, but 
otherwise not likely to conflict with anything.
• 半角/全角 button is exactly the same keycode as ` on US keyboard 
layout.  半角/全角 however is a different keycode from ` on a Japanese 
keyboard.
• 無変換 + 半角/全角 should also be an activator.  The user held down 無 
変換 and pressed 半角/全角, and was surprised that it did not activate 
like it does on Windows.  It is unclear if 無変換 is meant to be a 
modifier like ALT, but in any case  半角/全角 should have worked in this 
case while it did nothing with ibus.
• Simple Proposal: 半角/全角 or ALT-` activators by default because 
doesn't seem to conflict with anything important.  Meanwhile it is a lot 
less likely to be activated by accident like CTRL-Space.
• Advanced Proposal: Hotkey Inheritance Model, to have particular global 
hotkey defaults automatically only if you have those engines enabled

Candidate Selection Interface
=============================
• MacOS X Kotoeri
	∘ Vertical with slider, hides less likely candidates as "More..." until 
you arrow down and they unhide
	∘ Multi-word conversion doesn't seem to support word selection with 
left/right arrows like Windows IME or SCIM.  e.g. ねこをかっています 
then SPACE, try to choose between "have" and "buy", how?  Kotoeri 
Preferences -> Windows-like operation seems to enable the left/right 
button to select which word to convert
• MacOS X Hangul 2bul
	∘ Type character then Option-Return to pop-up Hanja candidate menu, 
vertical  with scrollbar like Kotoeri.  To the right of each Hanja 
character it displays in the standard Hanja dictionary format "Meaning 
<Pronunciation>"
• MacOS X Simplified Chinese ITABC (seems to be Pinyin)
	∘ Type character like "wo".  SPACE shows you "Standard" candidates from 
GB2312. Shift-SPACE shows you GB18030 candidates.
	∘ Default is to display candidates horizontally, picking with 
right/left arrow and ENTER, or number shotcut for quick picking.  In 
preferences you can switch it to vertical mode.  In horizontal mode, 
up/down goes to the next page of 9 candidates.
• ATOK Windows
	∘ Kumiko said ATOK on her home Windows XP system also does 
auto-learning/predictive input.  Example: Type ま before SPACE 
conversion and it displays words that you used beginning in ま.  Very 
convenient especially for typing unusual names repeatedly.  She really 
liked this feature of ATOK.  This is similar to cell phone IM.
	∘ Reportedly Microsoft IME lacks this predictive pre-conversion input.
	∘ ATOK however lacks the helpful dictionary entries in the candidate 
selection while displaying homophones.
	∘ Proposal: Auto-learning pre-conversion predictive candidate selection 
might be feasible to implement.  We already have the anthy dictionary 
and statistical algorithm which auto-learns.  We seem to have the 
building blocks to do this.  IDEA!  There is still time to propose this 
as a Google Summer of Code project.  A student could work on this as a 
feature of anthy independently of everything else we need to fix.

MacOS X 10.5.6 (some interesting things we could learn from)
============================================================
• Each language Input Method has simple and succinct help pages 
describing basic operation, localized into all languages.  The help 
pages are in a similar standardized format for each Input Method.
• Seems to have NO hotkeys for non-Native keyboards.  Not even an option 
to enable hotkeys. Eliminates possibility of hotkey conflicts that annoy 
users.  Mac users on US keyboards seem to rely on clicking on the 
language menu in the systray to switch between English and Japanese 
input.  Individual IM like Kotoeri have non-default options to map the 
caps-lock key to switch between Hiragana and Romaji mode without 
switching away from Kotoeri.  (Note: Some Japanese users on Windows I 
have witnessed do not know that 半角/全角 is an activator hotkey, and 
they similarly always click the language bar to enable Japanese IM.)
• Korean Types
	∘ 2-Set Korean
	∘ 3-Set Korean
	∘ 390 Sebulshik
	∘ GongjiCheong Romaja
	∘ HNC Romaja
• Japanese  Types
	∘ Hotkey in menu
• Reverse conversion ^UP R (not sure what this means?)
• Retrieve fixed Yomi ^UP Y   (undo conversion back to yomigana?)
	∘ Hiragana
	∘ Katakana
	∘ Full-width Romaji (not default)
	∘ Half-width Romaji (not default)
	∘ Romaji
	∘ Ainu (not default)
• Traditional Chinese Types
	∘ Zhuyin
	∘ Pinyin
	∘ Cangjie
	∘ Jianyi
	∘ Dayi(Pro)
	∘ Hanin (not default)
• Simplified Chinese Types
	∘ ITABC (Pinyin)
	∘ Wubi Xing
	∘ Wubi Hua

Warren Togami
wtogami at redhat.com