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MobileHCI, 2018 Barcelona, Spain. To improve literacy rate worldwide, research on mobile text entry in different languages is considerably important. In this position statement, a socio-technical aspect is proposed in favor of native language text entry which can bridge the gap between connectivity and communication.
Text Input; Mobile HCI; Native Language; Global Illiteracy; Global Connectivity.
H.5.m. Information interfaces and presentation (e.g., HCI): Miscellaneous.
Among all economic and demographic challenges, global
illiteracy is one of the major difficulty for people to
embrace technology and communicate worldwide [
People with low income and from less educated
communities do not use expensive and latest devices for
communication [
Different Regional Aspect
“Knowing your language can be so important in
developing a cultural identity,” says Maggie MacDonnell,
a $1 million Global Teacher Prize winner for her work on
underprivileged community [
Social media has enabled people to constantly update
and share their lives and experiences with their own
community [
Elderly people whose native language is not English are
usually not willing to learn new languages or
technologies. Mostly, they get disconnected due to lack
of technical knowledge. Still, they can communicate in
their native languages if the option is available [
C hildren of non-native English speaking community are forced to use different learning applications designed in English, can also learn in their native languages using the similar application if text entry in their native language is supported.
In every two weeks, a language dies [
In this position statement, the necessity of research on text entry in native languages has been depicted. For improving global literacy rate, mobile text entry in the native language can have extraordinary impact.
Tamanna Motahar is a lecturer of the Electrical and C omputer Engineering (EC E) department of North South University. She C ompleted her Masters in Electrical Engineering from the University of Alberta, C anada. Before that, she obtained another Master’s in Telecommunication Engineering form North South University, Bangladesh. She graduated summa cum laude in B.Sc. in C omputer Engineering from the American International University Bangladesh (AIUB). Her interdisciplinary research works are based on Human C omputer Interaction (HC I), Internet of Things (IOT) and IC T4D. She teaches programming languages (C, C ++), data structure and algorithm courses and Junior Design classes of C SE students in North South University. She is also mentoring several groups for their technical projects.
Related past/ current work 1. Participated in: “A summer school on Research Methods and Approaches to Text Entry and Oher Interaction Techniques”, IIT Bombay, Mumbai, India, May 21 – 25, 2018 2. Project: “Bornomala AR: A Bengali Alphabet Learning Experience using Augmented Reality” It is a Bengali Language Learning Augmented Reality Application for the android OS that aims to provide a better and easy way to learn Bengali alphabet. This application was created targeting the children of age 3 to 5 of Bangladesh, to make them more familiar with their native language. 3. Ongoing Project: “Typing error rate changes with the contrast of keyboard while walking” It is a quantative research on how typing error rate changes with the change of contrast of the keyboard while walking