Ashamedly I have to admit that some love letters crafted in my youth were first typed, then later, rewritten by hand.

I blame my teachers.

I attended 13 different schools in the 70s and 80s and at each was taught a different style of handwriting. With the trauma of different teachers making me relearn how to script a perfect ‘a’ vs ‘a’ 30 years later my handwriting is a bit random and tricky to decipher.

Therefore, where I can, I prefer to use a keyboard.

So it was with interest that I read a recent report by Gerald Noonan headlining that “Keyboard kids losing art of handwriting”. The article claims “...almost all are skilled users of computer keyboards. Most can easily outperform their elders when it comes to text messaging on their mobile phones”.

So do digital natives (those who picked up a keyboard possibly even before a crayon) even need handwriting anymore?

I think the QWERTY keyboard will be around for quite a bit longer and will out-live the mouse. My other prediction is that some form of handwriting (but not as we know it), will become more common as gestural interfaces become more common.

The first PDA to provide written input was the Apple Newton, but it only really went mainstream with Graffiti on the Palm OS. A modern handwriting recognition system can be seen in Microsoft's operating system running on Tablet PCs. The not too distant future promises an explosion of gestural interfaces which will incorporate handwriting recognition by default.

Despite this some people still find even a simple on-screen keyboard more efficient, which is perhaps why the iPhone shipped with its tiny on-screen keyboard. However, every iPhone owner I know of finds the keyboard frustrating and typing much slower than (even a tiny) physical keyboard such as the ones found on a Treo or Blackberry. This is one big hurdle the iPhone needs to overcome to be a truly usable product. It seems handwriting recognition is certainly on the horizon as the latest iPhone has handwriting recognition for Chinese characters. Rumours are that an English version is on the way.

Back to those digital natives. Will they even bother to write or stick stubbornly to the QWERTY input?

I think it’s up to interaction designers to create compelling experiences for gestural interfaces which make written text or symbols more fun, efficient and intuitive to use than a keyboard. With time handwriting could become “the norm” yet again!

Photo: © 2006 michale