German Enik - [email protected]

T/Th 4:30-5:20pm in STLC 105

1 unit

** Topics below will be intermixed **

㊙️ Writing Systems and their Encodings

• In-depth review of alphabets, abjads, abugidas, syllabaries, alphasyllabaries, logosyllabaries, ideographic systems. Which languages use them and why?
• History of encoding text into computers: bits, ASCII, UTF-8.
• What is Unicode?
• The ‘international’ writing system: emojis. How are they encoded, and how are they created/approved?

🎹 Text Entry

• How do hardware and software keyboards work, and what are the limitations & advantages of each (clicking sounds, haptics, (in)ability to use all 10 fingers, flexible layouts)?
• Layouts and habits: why do we use qwerty? Alternatives like Dvorak, stenotype, flick keyboard, etc.
• Autocorrect: where does one draw the line between help and intrusion?
• Candidates for Chinese/Japanese: what are they / why do we need them?
• Glide Typing, Voice Dictation, Handwriting: high-level overview.
• Transliteration, transcription: which scripts does it work for and which ones — not so much?
• Accessibility in text input: screen readers, eye-gaze typing.
• Future of text entry: multimodal typing assistant; beyond keys: touch bars, joysticks, sliders.

🌐 Internationalized Products for the International World

• What is locale: language code, country/region code, number formatting, date-time formatting, calendar setting (i.e. Lunar).