  Text entry in smartphones remains a critical element of mobile HCI. It has
been widely studied in lab settings, using primarily transcription tasks, and
to a far lesser extent through in-the-wild (field) experiments. So far it
remains unknown how well user behaviour during lab transcription tasks
approximates real use. In this paper, we present a study that provides evidence
that lab text entry behaviour is clearly distinguishable from real world use.
Using machine learning techniques, we show that it is possible to accurately
identify the type of study in which text entry sessions took place. The
implications of our findings relate to the design of future studies in text
entry, aiming to support input with virtual smartphone keyboards.
