[taneq]

I've seen people write letters in all manner of unexpected ways. If the resultant marks on the paper look enough like the intended letter, then it's readable by a human, and if it's readable by a human, it should be readable by a machine.

Not that I don't think "meet me halfway" type approaches (like the Graffiti system) aren't worth using, but in this case we're talking about recognizing writing (the artifact), not writing (the verb).

[DEADBEEFC0FFEE]

Interesting discussion, thank you.

I am reminded of the Graffiti handwriting notation used by Palm OS. That was single stroke, and devices came with a card depicting all the characters.

I was never able to become fluent.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graffiti_(Palm_OS)

[snowwrestler]

Your comment illustrates why Palm Pilots found market success with handwriting recognition (as far as I know, the only product that ever did so).

The trick was that they treated "Graffiti" as a new alphabet that users had to learn. Thus, when the recognition engine failed, many users blamed themselves (i.e. their Graffiti fluency) rather than the product.

In contrast, when products that promised to recognize natural handwriting had a recognition failure, the users tended to blame the products.

It's a good lesson for product development--user satisfaction will depend in part on user expectations.

[SmellyGeekBoy]

Wow, what a nostalgia trip! The Graffiti handwriting system was brilliant. I only owned a PalmOS device for a short time (I was very late to the party and they were already old hat) but I picked it up very quickly and still remember how to write most of the "letters".

[miskin]

I still think that Graffiti was very fast and efficient. It had real effect on my handwriting and I still see myself simplifying letters in graffiti way when I try to write fast :)

[kalleboo]

My mom and I were so fluent in Graffiti when I was in High School that the post-it notes my mom left for me when she was out would be written in it