Time and a word

[j4]

Does anybody know whether there exists a way of timing the writing/sending of a text message? Ideally it'd be some kind of stopwatch that you could set with a keypress and unset once you'd finished (so in fact you'd be able to use it to time other things on your phone as well, but call timing is already built-in for most phones and I'm not sure what else would be useful). Basically I'm interested to know how long it takes people to write and send (without using a template) short messages like "Yes", "No", "Thanks", and "Busy, will reply later". Obviously everybody's typing speed differs, so I guess I'd want to collect data from as many people as possible to get an average speed.

Comments

[j4.livejournal.com]

Ah. Thank you! The timing thing is impossible on my phone, then, but possible if I do ever get round to getting the P800 (which is what I'm currently lusting after).

The Treo has a keyboard, though, rather than the grouped-letters number-keys setup that ordinary phones have; any timing data would have to take alternative input mechanisms into account.

[martling.livejournal.com]

Do I get to find out why you're interested?

There are probably figures on this already, somewhere in the bowels of the manufacturers' usability research groups.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Do I get to find out why you're interested?

Just idle curiosity, really.

There are probably figures on this already, somewhere in the bowels of the manufacturers' usability research groups.

I guess there probably are... I will go and hunt around.

[juliet]

I gather you should be lusting after the P900 instead. Several of the bugs/irritants in the P800 have been got rid of, and it's a nicer colour :-) I *want* one (though I do like my Treo).

Entirely based on how-things-feel, I think the Treo keyboard is *slightly* faster than T9, & quite a lot faster than non-T9. But I happily admit that this is a completely unscientific comment :-)