Autocorrect canceling gesture

I am a fan of autocorrect. And I hate it, too.

I love autocorrect when it helps me properly spell a difficult or mis-typed word or when it speeds up my typing by properly predicting the next word I’d like to type.

The single thing that makes me hate autocorrect turns out to be something relatively easy to fix. When I am typing or tapping and I type a word or phrase that is oddly spelled, or a name made up of other words, autocorrect kicks in and “fixes” things. Sometimes I’ll be several words down the road before I realize it, sometimes I watch it happen as I type, sort of like watching a slow motion car crash, powerless to do anything other than let it play out. We’ve all been there.

Predictive text is a move in the right direction, but there are too many cases where it doesn’t offer the branch you need and autocorrect kicks in despite your best efforts.

I’d like to suggest two solutions.

First, I’d love to see an autocorrect canceling gesture, a gesture like pinch to zoom, double-tap to select a word, and swipe to get to another part of the interface. These gestures are used everywhere and work very well. I’m not suggesting a specific gesture, but when the autocorrect canceling gesture is detected, iOS or OS X would undo the last autocorrect, even if it was five words ago. Gesture again without typing and the autocorrect is redone (a cancel undo, if you will).

Second, I’d love to see an autocorrect disable gesture. Make the gesture and autocorrect is disabled until you gesture again, turning it back on. So if you knew you were about to type some juicy autocorrect bait, you could disable it, type your text, then enable it again.

Obviously, both gestures need to be extremely lightweight, quick to perform, or the solution will outweigh the problem. When I think about gestures, I imagine having a button dedicated to this task, within easy reach of one of my fingers, but impossible to click accidentally. If I had such a button to press to cancel an autocorrect, that would make autocorrect a boon instead of a mix of boon and bane.