Establishing a baseline for text entry for a multi-touch virtual keyboard (original) (raw)
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We study the performance and user experience of two popular mainstream mobile text entry methods: the Smart Touch Keyboard (STK) and the Smart Gesture Keyboard (SGK). Our first study is a lab-based ten-session text entry experiment. In our second study we use a new text entry evaluation methodology based on the experience sampling method (ESM). In the ESM study, participants installed an Android app on their own mobile phones that periodically sampled their text entry performance and user experience amid their everyday activities for four weeks. The studies show that text can be entered at an average speed of 28 to 39 WPM, depending on the method and the user's experience, with 1.0% to 3.6% character error rates remaining. Error rates of touchscreen input, particularly with SGK, are a major challenge; and reducing out-ofvocabulary errors is particularly important. Both SGK and STK have strengths, weaknesses, and different individual awareness and preferences. Two-thumb touch typing in a focused setting is particularly effective on STK, whereas one-handed SGK typing with the thumb is particularly effective in more mobile situations. When exposed to both, users tend to migrate from STK to SGK. We also conclude that studies in the lab and in the wild can both be informative to reveal different aspects of keyboard experience, but used in conjunction is more reliable in comprehensively assessing input technologies of current and future generations.
Eye on the Message: Reducing Attention Demand for Touch-based Text Entry
International Journal of Virtual Worlds and Human Computer Interaction
A touch-based text entry method was developed with the goal of reducing the attention demand on the user. The method, called H4touch, supports the entry of about 75 symbols and commands using only four soft keys. Each key is about 20 larger than the keys on a Qwerty soft keyboard on the same device. Symbols are entered as Huffman codes with most letters requiring just two or three taps. The codes for the letters and common commands are learned after a few hours of practice. At such time, the user can enter text while visually attending to the message, rather than the keyboard. Similar eye-on-the-message interaction is not possible with a Qwerty soft keyboard, since there are many keys and they are small. Entry speeds of 20+ wpm are possible for skilled users.
Proceedings of the 2012 ACM annual conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI '12, 2012
With the rise of current smartphones, virtual keyboards for touchscreens became the dominant mobile text entry technique. We developed a typing game that records how users touch on the standard Android keyboard to investigate users' typing behaviour. 47,770,625 keystrokes from 72,945 installations have been collected by publishing the game. By visualizing the touch distribution we identified a systematic skew and derived a function that compensates this skew by shifting touch events. By updating the game we conduct an experiment that investigates the effect of shifting touch events, changing the keys' labels, and visualizing the touched position. Results based on 6,603,659 keystrokes and 13,013 installations show that visualizing the touched positions using a simple dot decreases the error rate of the Android keyboard by 18.3% but also decreases the speed by 5.2% with no positive effect on learnability. The Android keyboard outperforms the control condition but the constructed shift function further improves the performance by 2.2% and decreases the error rate by 9.1%. We argue that the shift function can improve existing keyboards at no costs.
Two new mobile touchscreen text entry techniques
2010
This article introduces two new mobile touchscreen text entry techniques. One is timeout-based and the other is pressure-based. Also, this work examines the effects of tactile feedback on text entry techniques. Empirical comparisons between conventional and proposed techniques show that the new techniques, as well as tactile feedback, enhance overall text entry performance.
Touch Me , Hear Me , Feel Me : Feedback Preferences for Mobile Text Entry
2013
Many mobile devices use touchscreens for text entry. They also provide vibration and audio feedback to simulate interaction with a physical keyboard. To facilitate design decisions of new mobile text entry methods, we conducted a survey and a user study to measure user’s feedback preference and the effect of feedback modes on typing performance. We found that nearly half of respondents prefer no aural or haptic feedback. In our study, feedback mode had no statistically significant effect on entry speed or accuracy. However, comments made by users suggest that feedback preference is due to situational factors, rather than performance considerations.
Touchless Text Entry for All: Initial Design Considerations and Prototypes
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2015
In this paper, the foundations for a new touchless text entry method are set. The method in question is based on hand tracking for interacting with a novel virtual keyboard that has been designed to support adaptive text entry for all, including for users with disabilities or users of various assistive technologies. The virtual keyboard in question, which can be graphical or even imaginary (i.e., implied, but not visualised), implements a hierarchical selection approach for the act of writing, which involves character selection, text navigation and text modification. The proposed structure guarantees minimum keystrokes per character, and allows for user-friendly adaptations for offering accessibility, personalisation and increased performance rates for diverse input settings or display preferences. An implementation of the text entry method in question, using the LEAP, a novel 3D motion controller, is introduced here. Along with the fundamental specifications of the proposed keyboard and the required functionality of a software mechanism for initialising, personalising and interacting with it in any given context, this paper presents two prototypes currently under development for one-and ten-finger touchless text entry with LEAP, which are considered in view of developing a universal text input solution that could overshadow all past technologies.
Mobile Text-Entry and Visual Demands: Reusing and Optimizing Current Solutions
Purpose: Mobile devices are increasingly used for text entry in contexts where visual attention is fragmented and graphical information is inadequate, yet the current solutions to typing on virtual keyboards make it a visually-demanding task. This work looks at assistive technologies and interface attributes as tools to ease the task.
Quikwriting as a multi-device text entry method
Proceedings of the third Nordic conference on Human-computer interaction - NordiCHI '04, 2004
Quikwriting is a previously published technique for entering text into computers using a stylus. We report results of a longitudinal study on user performance with it. In addition to the original stylus-based usage mode we designed modes for joystick and keyboard thus making Quikwriting compatible with a wide range of computing devices. Twelve participants used the stylus and joystick modes in 20 sessions for a total of ten hours. By the end of the experiment their text entry rate was 16 wpm in the stylus mode and 13 wpm in the joystick mode. At the end we conducted a test to verify that Quikwriting skill transfers to the keyboard mode. Text entry rate for the first five minutes of use in the keyboard mode was 6 wpm. In summary, the stylus mode was not particularly fast, but we found Quikwriting suitable for multi-device use.