世論 What Japan Thinks

Here’s a short and perhaps less interesting than it could have been look at software keyboards, not just touch panels as on many smartphones, but also pen or even mouse-operated on-screen keyboards. The survey was conducted by goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Over the 29th and 30th of June 2010 1,065 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.7% of the sample were male, 16.1% in their teens, 18.5% in their twenties, 20.9% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, 16.2% in their fifties, and 12.1% aged sixty or older.

Sort-of connected with this topic, on the news tonight I saw an item on the use of the iPad by seniors. There were things like a training school for older people, with almost everyone over 70 years old and the oldest 95, who said he was keen to learn how to use it. There also seems to be a mini boom in the Japanese software industry for making OAP-targeted iPad applications.

Research results

Q1: Do you know about “software keyboards” that appear on screen and can be interacted with by mouse, pen, or finger? (Sample size=1,065)

Yes (to SQ1)	65.3%
No	34.7%

Q1SQ1: Have you ever used a software keyboard? (Sample size=695)

Yes	44.5%
No (to SQ2)	55.5%

Q1SQ2: Would you like to use a software keyboard? (Sample size=386)

Want to use	58.0%
Don’t want to use	17.4%
Don’t know	24.6%

Putting everything into a single question, we get:

Q1+SQ1+SQ2: Would you like to use a software keyboard? (Sample size=1,065)

Want to use	21.0%
Don’t want to use	6.3%
Don’t know	8.9%
Already used one	29.0%
Don’t know the term	34.7%