The title of the awarded research is “Don’t Break the Melody: Encouraging Accurate Handwriting Practice with Sound Feedback.”
Practicing characters such as hiragana and kanji often involves repeatedly tracing model characters, which can easily become boring and monotonous. To address this problem, Hatogai and colleagues proposed a method in which a melody is played in synchronization with the user’s handwriting while sound cues are presented according to the model pattern. Through experiments, they demonstrated that this approach is effective in supporting handwriting practice.
In the future, the team plans to conduct further evaluations in settings such as elementary schools and to expand the method for broader deployment as a practical service.
Reo Hatogai, Sayuri Matsuda, Kento Watanabe, Satoshi Nakamura, Akiyuki Kake. Don't Break the Melody: Encouraging Accurate Handwriting Practice with Sound Feedback, ACM Multimedia Asia 2025 (MMAsia '25), No.128, pp.1 - 7, 2025.