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Dasher
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By Jeff Kirvin, Wednesday 26 June 2002  
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Jeff Kirvin gives Dasher, a new input method for various devices - including Pocket PCs - a run for its non-money (it's freeware). One expression comes to mind: eye-boggling.
Dasher takes a novel approach to entering text in situations where a keyboard is either not available or not convenience. Instead of taking the stylus to the letters, the letters come to the stylus.
 | It looks like a complete mess, but Dasher is surprisingly fast
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Like most predictive input methods, Dasher is really only as good as its predictions. Other predictive methods - T9, for example - are problematic for fiction writers because they don't handle names, slang and other uncommon words very well. Dasher works around this limitation by being trainable. The user can "feed" Dasher any text they want, and Dasher will use that to predict the letter combinations that make up words.
Dasher first appears as a full-screen white field with the alphabet arrayed along the right edge of the screen. The user starts the stylus at a small cross in the center of the screen and moves the stylus in the direction of the first letter to be selected. So far, so good.
Then the screen starts to move. Each letter is contained in a small colored box, and the boxes nearest the stylus begin to grow. When the stylus is only pointing at one letter, it moves past the stylus and rests on the left side of the screen, beginning the word. Now to the right of the stylus are letters statistically likely to follow the first letter selected. The user continues to "select" letters based on proximity, by allowing the stylus to drift towards the letter that make up the word.
Conclusion
The resulting kinetic mess looks more like a video game than anything else, and some users may find the constant motion distracting. However, as nutty as it looks, Dasher is fast. It could be the fastest input method available for a keyboard-less Pocket PC, faster than Fitaly. It would take some getting used to, but the speed could be worth it.
- What's positive: Speed, trainability, great for "visually oriented" people
- What's negative: Requires looking at the screen at all times, takes up entire screen, requires decent reflexes
Overall: 
Conclusion
The resulting kinetic mess looks more like a video game than anything else, and some users may find the constant motion distracting. However, as nutty as it looks, Dasher is fast. It could be the fastest input method available for a keyboard-less Pocket PC, faster than Fitaly. It would take some getting used to, but the speed could be worth it.
What's positive:
Speed, trainability, great for "visually oriented" people
What's negative:
Requires looking at the screen at all times, takes up entire screen, requires decent reflexes
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