# Towards Accurate Children's Arabic Handwriting Recognition via Deep Learning
## 5 Development of the Mutqin Application  
We developed a prototype that integrates the CNN model into a useful tablet application for children to practice Arabic handwriting and spelling skills. First, we created a questionnaire to investigate the need for the development of an educational application to practice writing and spelling skills in Arabic and to gather functional requirements for such an application. We collected information from eight teachers. The results indicated that there was a need for the development of an application with essential and attractive features to encourage children to practice spelling and writing skills. Moreover, the results helped us to identify the most important functional requirements to build an application appropriate for the target audience. The target user is between 7 and 12 years old. The application offers two options: practice writing Arabic letters and practice spelling skills, as presented in Figure 3. The application allows a user to practice writing by displaying the writing board, which contains pens of different colors and an eraser, as presented in Figure 4. Moreover, the user receives appropriate feedback based on the input, as presented in Figure 5. Considering children are the main audience, the application was designed to be very clear and easy to use and understand.  
Figure 4: The writing board page interface.  
Figure 3: Homepage interface.  
Then, we implemented user acceptance testing, which is a necessary step before releasing software into the real world. It is used to ensure that the application accomplishes what it aims to do and meets the requirements [27]. We conducted user acceptance testing with 11 users. The participants were between 7 and 12 years old. The evaluation was based on three usability criteria: effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction. We recorded the time it took users to perform a particular function to ensure efficiency. To evaluate the application's effectiveness, we calculated the average number of errors in certain tasks and the average time it took users to complete the tasks, using both the stylus and the finger, for the application's target group.  
As shown in Table 7, all the functions passed the test and were completed in a reasonable amount of time; hence, it was concluded that the application was efficient and saved time. Finally, a survey was conducted to measure the user satisfaction with the application [28], and the users were satisfied.  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{l c c c} \hline \hline \multirow{2}{*}{**Task (Stylus)**} & **Average Number of** & **Average Time in** & \multirow{2}{*}{**Result**} \\  & **Errors** & **Seconds** & \\ \hline
**Choose skill** & 0.00 & 4.03 & Pass \\
**Hear sound** & 0.09 & 5.15 & Pass \\
**Change pen color** & 0.00 & 5.58 & Pass \\
**Write on board** & 1.73 & 28.87 & Pass \\
**Erase** & 0.00 & 2.99 & Pass \\ \hline
**Task (Finger)** & & & \\ \hline
**Choose skill** & 0.00 & 3.45 & Pass \\
**Hear sound** & 0.00 & 4.07 & Pass \\
**Change pen color** & 0.00 & 3.16 & Pass \\
**Write on board** & 1.36 & 26.64 & Pass \\
**Erase** & 0.00 & 1.03 & Pass \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table}
Table 7: User acceptance test for stylus and finger tasks.  
Figure 5: Feedback interface.