Could a thumbs-up be given to a new keyboard which makes touchscreen typing faster?
Researchers at St Andrews University teamed up with the Max Planck Institute for Informatics in Germany and Montana Tech to create the new system which enables faster thumb-typing on touchscreen devices.
Dubbed KALQ, after the order the keys appear in the keyboard, it will allow people to type 34% faster on tablets. They researched millions of potential layouts before coming up with the optimum style.
Dr Per Ola Kristensson, lecturer in human computer interaction in the School of Computer Science at St Andrews, said the legacy of the traditional QWERTY keyboard had trapped users with an inferior system when using mobile devices.
“However, before abandoning QWERTY, users rightfully demand a compelling alternative,” the professor added.
“We believe KALQ provides a large enough performance improvement to incentivise users to switch and benefit from faster and more comfortable typing.”
Two-thumb typing is ergonomically very different from typing on a physical keyboard. The QWERTY layout is ill-suited for tablets and other touchscreen devices when typing with both thumbs.
It has been established that normal users using a QWERTY on a touchscreen device are limited to typing at a rate around 20 words per minute, which is slow compared to the entry rates users can typically achieve on physical keyboards.
By rearranging the keys on the keyboard layout, it is possible to enable faster thumb typing.
However, the researchers quickly realised that slight changes of the layout, like exchanging a few keys, would not be sufficient for a significant improvement.
Words frequently used in texts have to be typed on a split-QWERTY layout with a single thumb. This makes the typing process cumbersome and slow.
This insight initiated the process to develop a layout for two thumbs which could speed up typing and minimise strain.
Dr Antti Oulasvirta, senior researcher at the Max Planck Institute, said: “The key to optimising a keyboard for two thumbs is to minimise long typing sequences that only involve a single thumb.
“It is also important to place frequently used letter keys centrally close to each other. From these insights we derived a predictive behavioural model we could use to optimise the keyboard.”
The process had two goals to minimise the moving time of thumbs and enable typing on alternative sides of a tablet as much as possible. The researchers will present their work at a conference in Paris on Wednesday.