What I enjoy about pinyin input is I can just touch type. Without remembering how the character is written. And then when I see the result, I can check it and

What I enjoy about pinyin input is I can just touch type. Without remembering how the character is written. And then when I see the result, I can check it and (assuming I sort-of-know the character well enough to do so) I confirm it and go on. Sometimes confirming is not an extra step; it's simply continuing to type. Also I can type a long bunch of characters in sequence, and they give each other context so the characters get disambiguated, meaning I have less to check and fewer things to choose or correct. This new method seems like a good system for someone who doesn't know how to say the words they want to type. Such as some of the people the OP described, so good job on that front! Maybe not so good if you are learning or aiming to learn spoken Chinese, though, because it keeps you away from learning or reinforcing the pronunciations, doesn't build on existing knowledge of the keyboard, and doesn't create a very portable skill as pinyin typing would.