Information Retrieval of Imperfectly Recognized Handwriting
http://www.useit.com/papers/handwriting_retrieval.html

Nielsen, Jakob, Victoria L. Phillips and Susan T. Dumais
Alertbox
1993

Abstract:

A user test of handwritten input on a pen machine achieved a 1.6% recognition error rate at the character level, corresponding to 8.8% errors on the word level. Input speed was 10 words per minute. In spite of the recognition errors, information retrieval of the handwritten notes was almost as good as retrieval of perfect text.