Posts tagged design

Moving forward requires rethinking things. Sometimes, this might mean rethinking things that most people would think can’t be rethought. Take the paradigm that we currently have of for text input: the keyboard. The keyboard is large and cumbersome, or it’s hard to use when it gets small. Tactile feedback is important, or you have to watch your keyboard the entire time (iPhone, anyone?). Additionally, the keyboard presents some major issues for accessibility, and for people who like to write in multiple languages or alphabets.

The standard qwerty keyboard was designed as such to simply prevent the likelihood of two keys being typed right after each other, as this could cause typebar crashes, a serious mishap in the typewriter days. But, after it became standard, there was no real opportunity or drive to change it back to anything more useful or thoughtfully designed. There are supporters of alternate keyboard layouts, but they are within the minority, and tend to be constrained to re-programmed keyboard input devices.

Recently, I heard some friends discussing how pointless a new text input device developed by a grad student seemed. They said “you’d have to learn all new patterns!”. Are new patterns really any different from what we all had to learn when we figured out where the keys were on a keyboard? Could there be a text input method lurking out there that is miles ahead of what we all spend hours using every day?

Take a look at some interesting new text input methods that are out there right now:

1. Dasher
   This entry method uses one directional input to construct sentences. As you pick a letter, you move towards more letters that are only available if they make sense after the previously chosen letter. How does one create words that aren’t real words? That’s my only question. There is an interesting video showing how it works here.

   

   “Dasher is a text-entry system in which a language model plays an integral role, and it’s driven by continuous gestures. Users can achieve single-finger writing speeds of 35 words per minute and hands-free writing speeds of 25 words per minute. Dasher is free software, and it works in all languages, and on many platforms. Dasher is part of Debian, and there’s even a little java version for your web-browser.”

2. Swype
   This method has a standard keyboard, but it is used by drawing lines connecting the letters in the word. The algorithm then figures out what you are trying to write. Apparently you can even miss letters and it should figure it out. This will greatly depend on it’s predictive ability, but would be much better than trying to type on a real keyboard, and doesn’t require relearning of keyboard ideas.
   
3. EdgeWrite
   This sounds like what my friends were talking about. Here, you are confined to a box with a stylus. Different combinations of swipes on sides and diagonals of the box create different letters. Seems hard to mess up, once you’ve memorized the combinations. But perhaps that’s too big of a barrier?
   
4. KeyBowl
   Each hand holds a dome, which can be rotated. Different combinations of angles create different letters. This keyboard claims to be more ergonomic and prevent strain injuries. Again, the issue lies in having to re-memorize key placement.
   

I think the biggest issue with all of these types of text input is the fact that the keyboard is still so prevelant. I know that I get very confused when I switch between my laptop and desktop, simply because the ctrl button is in a different place on each. Imagine trying to keep motor memory for two different kinds of text input! I would not be surprised if there were major gains in speed and accuracy for people using a text input other than the keyboard, but they will likely have a lot of trouble switching back to a normal keyboard if/when they need to. On the plus side, it might be a good security feature if no one else knows how to type on your computer!