Subject: RE: [Sipping] Text support in SIP phones

From: "A vWijk" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2003 15:58:49 +0200

Michael,

And my point is that the real-time text conversation is for ALL users.
Hearing users DO like to know if the other person is actually typing or not. Very often IM messages cross each other. Becuase the other user was taking so much more time to reply, that the original sender is already adding additional stuff or even questions. 
That happens very very often between hearing IM users (or hearing /deaf etc etc).
Yahoo messenger and some other IM clients now have an indicator when the other user is typing.
Also some IM clients offer a chat mode in IRC style. Which allows for quicker and more interactive conversation. But it still goes line by line with the mixups.

The above shows that most users will like the ability to communicate in real-time using text. And those are hearing users!

Hence, I URGE all IM designers/programmers to include real-time streaming text. And use RFC 2793 so that any client can interwork with any other client.

greetz

Arnoud

PS. I am so strong about this because I see how important this real-time streaming text is. So any comments are not directed to the persons personally. Everybody is free to have his or her own opinions. You are free to hate streaming text, but realise that there is a huge user base who dearly want streaming text. 

Drs. Arnoud A. T. van Wijk
Viataal
Research & Development
Afdeling RDS
Theerestraat 42
5271 GD Sint-Michielsgestel
The Netherlands.
Mobile: +31651921948
International text telephone: +31735588408

>>> Michael Hammer <[email-masked]> 06/17/03 05:10pm >>>
Guido,

Please don't get so defensive.

You missed the whole point of my statement, which has little to do with 
what deaf people prefer, and everything to do with what non-deaf people 
might prefer, if both parties were using text-based near-real-time 
communications.

I was responding to your suggestion that non-deaf users would also prefer 
the character-by-character mode of operation.  I was simply disagreeing 
with that assertion.  I was also up front that mine was simply an 
individual opinion.

The studies that you cite seemed to be focused on determining what the deaf 
experience, and your added comments concerning non-deaf experience appeared 
anecdotal.  I was merely suggesting that the experiences of both sides of 
the communication should be taken into account, for both the asymmetrical 
(text/voice) and symmetrical (both text) types of exchanges.

Your point about the nature of the experience when dealing with the 
situation where one party is using text and the other is using voice is a 
key distinguishing factor.

I appreciate the education I am getting by following the discussion.  But, 
please don't attack me for questioning what the studies are really saying 
based on the limited information provided thus far, or for exploring 
alternative experiences and opinions.

Mike

At 03:26 PM 6/17/2003 +0100, Guido Gybels wrote:
>Michael,
>
><<Personally speaking, and maybe I have ADD, but I would find 
>watching  someone type mildly interesting in the short run, but as boring 
>as watching  grass grow in the long run.>>
>
>To be quite frank about this, I was speaking about what deaf and hard of 
>hearing people want as a group, not necessarily what you or I want as 
>individuals or as techies. Believe me, I have argued a lot about this and 
>talked about IM with them etc. The point is that if it doesn't suit their 
>requirements, we have to accept that. The technology should adapt to the 
>user, not the other way around.
>Apart from that, you have however missed my most important point, namely 
>the use of a relay service. When a deaf person wants to talk to a hearing 
>person over the relay service, the IM model simply does not work. The 
>operators will be speaking to the hearing party as words come through and 
>type back to the deaf users almost simultaneously as the voice from the 
>hearing party comes true. That is the closest deaf and hard of hearing 
>people can get. We have done trials with our gateway and RNID Typetalk 
>using deaf and hard of hearing people and the number 1 item was that the 
>message style conversation didn't work for them at all in that scenario. I 
>think we should accept that the user requirements are the predominant 
>driving factor here, not what we would like to develop. I'll leave it to 
>Arnoud, who is deaf, to comment on this from the user perspective, but 
>based on our research, I'm quite sure I'm right about this.
>As to finding it boring: I have actually used both systems and to be 
>honest I find IM much more frustrating than character-by-character. I 
>accept that my individual judgement doesn't constitute relevant data, but 
>neither does your personal assessment of it being boring. Let's accept 
>that user requirements drive this.
>
><<I would more likely turn my attention to other tasks at work and come 
>back later when they are done typing.>>
>
>Which misses the point about using text as an equivalent to voice 
>altogether, I'm afraid. Deaf people are not using text as an additional 
>medium, it is their version of talking to someone over the phone. I would 
>respectfully suggest that we therefore allow *them* to odentify what they 
>want as users, rather than having us tell them what they want.
>
><<So, I'm not so sure we can draw well-founded conclusions based on some 
>anecdotal evidence.>>
>
>Excuse me, the trials we have conducted recently and in the past, as well 
>as the experience of 10 years of running RNID Typetalk constitute quite 
>relevant expertise. That is quite different to individuals in here voicing 
>their personal opinions and speaking on behalf of deaf and hard of hearing 
>people.
>There is currently a research project going on under the auspices of TAG 
>in the UK, using independent researchers to verify the current assumptions 
>and user requirements. I'm more than happy to publish those results to 
>IETF when they become available. I take it that you all then agree to 
>accept the outcome of that independent research? Do I have a commitment on 
>that??
>
><<I'm sure those (on both sides) that had no choice have a strong affinity 
>to what they are used to,  but I'm not so sure which they would choose if 
>both were available.>>
>
>You miss the point that hundreds of thousands of deaf people DO use IM. As 
>they use other text based solutions in mainstream technology. And they say 
>to us clearly that it doesn't meet their needs. So, I accept that the 
>users are telling me what they need/want. Not the other way around.
>
>Best regards,
>
>Guido
>
>
>
>Guido Gybels
>Director of New Technologies
>
>RNID, 19-23 Featherstone Street
>London EC1Y 8SL, UK
>Tel +44(0)20-7294 3713
>Fax +44(0)20-7296 8069
>
>
>
>
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---

From: Henning Schulzrinne <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2003 10:59:31 -0400

Two quick remarks:

- There is a draft, draft-schulzrinne-simple-iscomposing-00.txt, that 
describes a mechanism for indicating that one party is composing a 
message. (Composing could include creating a video or audio message.) 
This is a generalization of the 'is typing' status indication commonly 
found on commercial IM systems.

- Even with one-character-at-a-time transmission, a user interface at 
the receiver could render the text in more semantically meaningful units 
(and minus the usual backspace-over-typos annoyance), e.g., on word or 
CR boundaries. This does impose the burden on the sender to indicate 
such semantic units. Some senders may prefer to compose their thoughts 
before sending them or are bad typists, so this one-unit-at-a-time 
should also be possible for senders.

I have no data to back this up, but I suspect that familiarity of the 
two parties and text communications may influence the preference for 
message or character mode. If you do this a lot, you either become very 
good at typing or you don't care if things look a bit jumbled. If I were 
to send text messages to my Provost, I would want to make sure they are 
typo-free and correct in grammar. I probably would find a more 
spontaneous mode more appropriate if 'talking' to my son.

I'm also somewhat confused as to why this is an either-or proposition. 
2793 is pretty light-weight, so this is hardly an undue burden to 
implement. (I would find it useful just as a test tool for verifying NAT 
operation for RTP :-))

A vWijk wrote:

> Michael,
> 
> And my point is that the real-time text conversation is for ALL
> users. Hearing users DO like to know if the other person is actually
> typing or not. Very often IM messages cross each other. Becuase the
> other user was taking so much more time to reply, that the original
> sender is already adding additional stuff or even questions. That
> happens very very often between hearing IM users (or hearing /deaf
> etc etc). Yahoo messenger and some other IM clients now have an
> indicator when the other user is typing. Also some IM clients offer a
> chat mode in IRC style. Which allows for quicker and more interactive
> conversation. But it still goes line by line with the mixups.
> 
> The above shows that most users will like the ability to communicate
> in real-time using text. And those are hearing users!
> 
> Hence, I URGE all IM designers/programmers to include real-time
> streaming text. And use RFC 2793 so that any client can interwork
> with any other client.
>