So, this is interesting; at first, I thought it was April Fools’. Last week, Google introduced Handwrite to make mobile device searches easier. Check out the video:
At first blush, this seems like a good exercise in user experience. Stabbing your tiny smart phone keyboard isn’t always practical, which is why I frequently use the voice search feature of Android, an underrated feature.
In practice so far, my results have varied from the ones in the video, unsurprisingly. In some cases, the handwriting recognition happened before I finished writing, an odd scenario where something was actually too fast. In others, the results were just wrong. It’s probably easier on a tablet, although there are fewer instances where I’d use it on that device.
Handwriting will get better, and this could be an interesting addition to Google’s arsenal of UX tools.
Thoughts? Find the comments.
After all these years of typing, I can’t write any more. Even my check-writing signature has changed, not that anyone has noticed.
Funny you mention that, I’ve had the same issue over the last decade or so. We vote by mail, and they made me verify myself by mail bc my signature had changed so much. Writing is a lost art.