Slide 4 of 15
Notes:
The development of WordCore was guided by the following parameters:
1. 45 keys only: The Vantage is designed to have a maximum number of 45 keys. If a 128-key configuration was implemented on a 7 inch diameter screen, the keys would be so small as to be impractical to use.
2. Optimal keystroke reduction: The aim was to provide a large vocabulary that can be accessed with as few keystrokes as possible as compared with regular spelling.
3. Word Prediction would be integral: Unlike the Unity program that is designed to use Word Prediction as a 'back-up' to thousands of pre-stored words in icon sequences, WordCore expects the Word Prediction feature of the communication aid to be used.
4. Voice output is primary: With only 45 keys available, having literary devices such as periods, commas, shift keys, exclamation points and so on should be avoided. The principal aim of the device is to provide speech output not written output.
5. Words should be chosen on the basis of frequency studies: Although a number of vocabulary lists were consulted, the two most heavily used corpora were the "LOB" corpus (Hofland and Johannson, 1984) and the "Reading" corpus (Raban, 1987). The former uses written text sampling from many sources and the latter uses the spoken vocabulary of five-year olds in the UK.
