Abstract
A few people are frequently using Korean text entry function in the mobile phone. To make matters worse, too many kinds of Korean text entry methods exist in the market, compelling mobile phone users to learn how to input texts all over again, whenever they purchase a new mobile phone. The purpose of this study is to propose a universal design of Korean text entry method for mobile phones. Several experiments and several questionnaire surveys were conducted in order to induce design factors for the universal design. Participants were mobile phone users with the diverse levels of text entry expertise and with the diverse ages. The results of this investigation were identical, irrespective of participants' age and expertise. The efficiency of the text entry method was not more important factor than memorability. The layout of vowels to keypad was preferred to map just 3 strokes to the 3 buttons so that users can make for themselves vowels that they want to input. The preference on the consonants layout was different according to investigation methods. According to the survey, it was preferred that consonants were arranged by alphabet order. However, the result of text entry speed measurement was that the arrangement by alphabet order was not superior to the typical arrangement. Such results may be used to design mobile phones for diverse users.