The spell checker in the Mac Mail tool that I use at work is constantly changing the technical terms I use (in my work) into other words, fundamentally destroying what I am attempting to communicate. It does this automatically requiring an explicit click to defeat (requiring a reach for the mouse--a big nuisance when you have two hands on keyboard) and I sometimes overlook this. No matter how many times I use a particular term unknown to it (which could be a private or common acronym, a computer language command, or an esoteric concept word) the spell checker never learns. Even when the technical terms I use are in all letters, and may actually be valid if obscure english words, and I use them frequently, they aren't remembered. Right now, typing into Blogger from another Mac, a similar if not identical checker seems to be working, so maybe it's Mac specific rather than tool specific (now I am using Safari, into Blogger). I recall the spell checker in my iPhone working similarly, but it wasn't as much a nuisance with that, since I am rarely giving technical support via phone, and even if I did it would be very short. Actually, on the phone, where misspelling was far too easy compared with keyboard at work, an aggressive spell checker with limited vocabulary may have been ideal.
The spell checker in my Android based Samsung Galaxy S4 message tool seems much different, and very inconveniently so in a different way. It seems to have pre-memorized all the typical mistakes made on an Android keyboard, and added them to an official word list. Especially, on the tiny keyboard, it's all too easy to type a number when you mean a letter. So for example I am trying to enter "work" but enter "2ork" instead. Then it doesn't show "work" as a correction choice (factoring in the proximity of numbers to the top row of letters). It shows me 2ork (what I just entered wrongly!) 23rd, and 20th. On the longer list of possibilities, not even one starts with a w, the letter right below 2 on the keyboard. I've often entered digits invalidly in words and had the message tool checker give me all similar looking nonsense choices with digits in the middle of words. And the same is true with many all-letter misspellings as well. The choices I am offered are all horribly misspelled words--most often not sounding like any acronym I've ever heard. And when one of my horribly misspelled words goes through (as happens all too often) I believe it will be around to haunt me even more in the future as a spell checker preferred choice.
And as it happens, the Galaxy S4 mail tool keyboard (portrait mode) has the spell corrected words just above the numbers…so I might just type another number when I intended to choose a spelling correction to a word with one number. And then I will get only nonsense choices, with two or more numbers in them, or perhaps only just what I entered. How useful is that?
As with so many computer "conveniences" one wonders how much the designers actually used these designs before foisting them on the public. Or how many kinds of other people they got feedback from in refining the design. It seems often that flaws in technical products should have been noticed and corrected in the very first prototype. Or not made in the first place by a thoughtful designer.
But then if designs are created only from the top down, from directives like "make a spell checker which learns new words and presents choices", without much further thought or testing on the part of the designers and others working from that directive, we might get these kinds of deeply flawed products.
The spell checker in my Android based Samsung Galaxy S4 message tool seems much different, and very inconveniently so in a different way. It seems to have pre-memorized all the typical mistakes made on an Android keyboard, and added them to an official word list. Especially, on the tiny keyboard, it's all too easy to type a number when you mean a letter. So for example I am trying to enter "work" but enter "2ork" instead. Then it doesn't show "work" as a correction choice (factoring in the proximity of numbers to the top row of letters). It shows me 2ork (what I just entered wrongly!) 23rd, and 20th. On the longer list of possibilities, not even one starts with a w, the letter right below 2 on the keyboard. I've often entered digits invalidly in words and had the message tool checker give me all similar looking nonsense choices with digits in the middle of words. And the same is true with many all-letter misspellings as well. The choices I am offered are all horribly misspelled words--most often not sounding like any acronym I've ever heard. And when one of my horribly misspelled words goes through (as happens all too often) I believe it will be around to haunt me even more in the future as a spell checker preferred choice.
And as it happens, the Galaxy S4 mail tool keyboard (portrait mode) has the spell corrected words just above the numbers…so I might just type another number when I intended to choose a spelling correction to a word with one number. And then I will get only nonsense choices, with two or more numbers in them, or perhaps only just what I entered. How useful is that?
As with so many computer "conveniences" one wonders how much the designers actually used these designs before foisting them on the public. Or how many kinds of other people they got feedback from in refining the design. It seems often that flaws in technical products should have been noticed and corrected in the very first prototype. Or not made in the first place by a thoughtful designer.
But then if designs are created only from the top down, from directives like "make a spell checker which learns new words and presents choices", without much further thought or testing on the part of the designers and others working from that directive, we might get these kinds of deeply flawed products.
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