WO2006080935A1 - Claviers ambigus optimises en termes d'aptitude a la frappe et a distorsion reduite - Google Patents

Claviers ambigus optimises en termes d'aptitude a la frappe et a distorsion reduite Download PDF

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Publication number
WO2006080935A1
WO2006080935A1 PCT/US2005/014211 US2005014211W WO2006080935A1 WO 2006080935 A1 WO2006080935 A1 WO 2006080935A1 US 2005014211 W US2005014211 W US 2005014211W WO 2006080935 A1 WO2006080935 A1 WO 2006080935A1
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Prior art keywords
distortion
keyboard
keys
key
symbols
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PCT/US2005/014211
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English (en)
Inventor
Howard Andrew Gutowitz
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Eatoni Ergonomics, Inc.
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Priority to EP05742146A priority Critical patent/EP1851856A4/fr
Priority to US11/814,769 priority patent/US20080138135A1/en
Priority to AU2005325740A priority patent/AU2005325740B2/en
Priority to CA002596093A priority patent/CA2596093A1/fr
Publication of WO2006080935A1 publication Critical patent/WO2006080935A1/fr

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    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
    • G06F3/00—Input arrangements for transferring data to be processed into a form capable of being handled by the computer; Output arrangements for transferring data from processing unit to output unit, e.g. interface arrangements
    • G06F3/01—Input arrangements or combined input and output arrangements for interaction between user and computer
    • G06F3/02—Input arrangements using manually operated switches, e.g. using keyboards or dials
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
    • G06F3/00—Input arrangements for transferring data to be processed into a form capable of being handled by the computer; Output arrangements for transferring data from processing unit to output unit, e.g. interface arrangements
    • G06F3/01—Input arrangements or combined input and output arrangements for interaction between user and computer
    • G06F3/02—Input arrangements using manually operated switches, e.g. using keyboards or dials
    • G06F3/023—Arrangements for converting discrete items of information into a coded form, e.g. arrangements for interpreting keyboard generated codes as alphanumeric codes, operand codes or instruction codes
    • G06F3/0233—Character input methods
    • G06F3/0237—Character input methods using prediction or retrieval techniques
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
    • G06F3/00—Input arrangements for transferring data to be processed into a form capable of being handled by the computer; Output arrangements for transferring data from processing unit to output unit, e.g. interface arrangements
    • G06F3/01—Input arrangements or combined input and output arrangements for interaction between user and computer
    • G06F3/02—Input arrangements using manually operated switches, e.g. using keyboards or dials
    • G06F3/023—Arrangements for converting discrete items of information into a coded form, e.g. arrangements for interpreting keyboard generated codes as alphanumeric codes, operand codes or instruction codes
    • G06F3/0233—Character input methods
    • G06F3/0236—Character input methods using selection techniques to select from displayed items
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
    • G06F3/00—Input arrangements for transferring data to be processed into a form capable of being handled by the computer; Output arrangements for transferring data from processing unit to output unit, e.g. interface arrangements
    • G06F3/01—Input arrangements or combined input and output arrangements for interaction between user and computer
    • G06F3/048—Interaction techniques based on graphical user interfaces [GUI]
    • G06F3/0481—Interaction techniques based on graphical user interfaces [GUI] based on specific properties of the displayed interaction object or a metaphor-based environment, e.g. interaction with desktop elements like windows or icons, or assisted by a cursor's changing behaviour or appearance
    • G06F3/0482—Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H03—ELECTRONIC CIRCUITRY
    • H03M—CODING; DECODING; CODE CONVERSION IN GENERAL
    • H03M11/00—Coding in connection with keyboards or like devices, i.e. coding of the position of operated keys
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04M2250/00—Details of telephonic subscriber devices
    • H04M2250/70—Details of telephonic subscriber devices methods for entering alphabetical characters, e.g. multi-tap or dictionary disambiguation

Definitions

  • This invention relates generally to computerized text-entry systems based on ambiguous keyboards, more specifically to typability optimized ambigous keyboards with reduced distortion.
  • the first response to change is rejection.
  • its appearance may need to be changed.
  • Yet changing a keyboard from a familiar design makes the keyboard appear at first sight to be less usable.
  • Perception of usability and real usability are at odds.
  • this invention teaches solutions to the problem in the particular domain of ambiguous keyboards.
  • ambiguous keyboard designs which are novel in that they are of improved typability with respect to a conventional design, yet are of sufficiently minimized distortion with respect to the conventional design that they invite approach and experimentation on the part of naive users.
  • This invention introduces a novel class of devices which are both of acceptable layout distortion and acceptable typability, where both aspects are important enough to require compromise between the two.
  • Prior-art methods sought to optimize with respect to only one or the other set of constraints, and then, only certain aspects of either layout distortion or typability were considered.
  • Gutowitz 6885317 hereby incorporated by reference and relied upon, and hereinafter Gutowitz '317, there was no suggestion in the literature that layout distortion and typability were related, much less could be simulaneously optimized, as is taught by the present invention.
  • This invention teaches how to construct devices which synergize the teachings of maximizing typability and mimizing distortion. It is in particular highly non- obvious to measure or minimize distortion, as distortion is a psychological, not physical, property.
  • the discovery period US Patent Application 10/415,031 by Gutowitz and Jones.
  • the user does actual manipulation of the device.
  • the pre-discovery period the appearance of the device, the period of imagining what it would be like to use the device is essential.
  • the pre-discovery period is a main focus of the present invention.
  • Ambiguous codes are well known in the art. On the standard telephone keypad used in the United States, there are 12 keys, 10 of which encode a digit, and several of these, typically 8, encode in addition 3 or 4 letters of the alphabet, arranged in alphabetic order. These assignments produce an ambiguous code which we will call the standard ambiguous code (SAG). This code is abc def ghi jkl mno pqrs tuv wxyz.
  • Disambiguation Method Since several letters are encoded on each key in an ambiguous code, some method of disambiguation must be used to decide which of the several letters is intended by the user.
  • the disambiguation method is typically software which predicts which sequence of letters is intended by the user, based on the user's previous input and a database of linguistic information.
  • Layouts. A layout is an assignment of letters to keys where the keys are in some spatial arrangement. When no confusion will arise, the words keyboard and layout may be used interchangeably.
  • Layout distortion In this disclosure we are concerned with pairs of keyboards: a convention keyboard, and a distorted keyboard which is derived from the convention keyboard by moving some letters from their position in the conventional keyboard.
  • the layout distortion is the difference between the conventional keyboard and the derived keyboard.
  • layout distortion There are two main classes of layout distortion: order distortion and partition distortion.
  • Order distortion is the order in which the labels of keys would be read by a reader of the language whose script is typed by the keyboard, e.g. English is typed with Latin script by the qwerty keyboard, and the keyboard is read left to right, top to bottom, qwertyuiopasdfgh....
  • a order distortion is a displacement of a letter from its conventional position in the order.
  • a partition of an integer n is a set of integers such that the sum of the elements of the set is equal to n.
  • a given integer admits many partitions, e.g. the integer 5 has the partition 3:2, but also the partition 2:2:1.
  • Algorithms for generating all the partitions of an integer are well known to those skilled in the art. There are various characteristics of partitions which are relevant to this disclosure, some of which are defined immediately below.
  • Even-as-possible Most prior art codes use an even-as-possible partition. That is, a partition in which, to the extent possible given the number of keys in relation to the number of letters to be encoded, the number of letters per key is the same. Even-as-possible may be abbreviated as EAP.
  • Row distortion Most conventional keyboards comprise keys organized in a regular, typically honeycomb, array with identifiable rows and columns. If a letter is displaced from its conventional row in a new layout, then the new layout has a row distortion. Column distortion is defined in the same way.
  • the range of a partition is a generalization of even-as-possible property.
  • the irregularity of a partition is defined as the difference between the minimum and maximum number of letters assigned to any key. If the conventional keyboard is an unambiguous keyboard with one letter per key, then, intuitively, the lower the irregularity of the distorted keyboard, the less the keyboard is perceived as distorted.
  • Dominant class The dominant class of a partition of letters onto keys is the largest number of keys which the same number of letters.
  • the dominant class of the partition of letters onto keys (4,3,3,1) is the two keys with 3 letters each.
  • the bigger the dominant class in relationship to the total number of keys in the partition the more the keyboard is regular.
  • Two partitions may have the same range, but have a different number of keys in the dominant class.
  • Layout distortions may be classified as to whether and to what degree the movement of letters from their positions in the conventional keyboard to the distorted keyboard changes the gestures which are used to type the letters. For instance, exchanging the letters q and a on the qwerty keyboard would not affect which finger is used to type either q or a, so the exchange is equi-finger, though it does change the distance the finger must move to type the letter. In both the qwerty keyboard and the distorted keyboard, both q and a are typed with the left little finger by a touch typist.
  • Typability refers to the work or time required to enter text.
  • a commonly used measure of work for an ambiguous keyboard is kspc (average keystrokes per character). The amount of time needed to enter text may not be simply related to the kspc.
  • Various processes may have to occur in addition to pressing keys in order to enter text, and these processes take time. For instance, if a word-based disambiguation method is used, and more than one word corresponds to the keystroke sequence used to enter the intended word, then time will be required to examine and select from the possible candidates the intended word.
  • Drumroll effect is a typability constraint relating to the time required to enter text.
  • not all keystrokes take the same amount of time. For instance, if each of a pair of letters in a sequence are typed with different fingers, the sequence may be entered more quickly than if they are typed with the same ringer. While a first finger is entering the first letter, the second ringer can moved into position to enter the second letter. The first and second keystrokes are thus overlapped in time. This overlapping is called the drumroll effect.
  • Fitts' law is a mathematical model used in typing studies to estimate the time needed to make a keystroke depending on the size of the keys and the distance between keys. The longer the distance, the larger the time, and the larger the keys, the shorter the time.
  • Steric Hindrance A term of art borrowed from chemistry. It refers to hindrance between otherwise freely moving objects whose motion becomes hindered when the objects are close to each each other, due to the fact that the objects occupy space. Steric hindrance must be taken into account when the size of the keys is small compared to the size of the finger or thumb used to type the key. The steric hindrance effect can modify the results of both drumroll and Fitts' law analyses.
  • the interaction mechanism is physical means the user uses to interact with the keyboard.
  • the telephone keypad is often typed with one finger, or one thumb, or two thumbs. Which interaction mechanism is used may be depend on many factors, depending on the experience of the user and/or other activities the user is engaged in at the time of text entry, e.g. holding a cup of coffee in one hand may prevent a user from using a two- thumb interaction mechanism which she would otherwise prefer. Some typability measures depend on the interaction mechanism, while others do not.
  • Disambiguation software When there is more than one letter on a key, some means is needed to select which one is intended by the user at any given time. The selection could be mechanical (e.g. hit the key once for the first letter, twice for the second letter, ...) or it could be determined by an algorithm which guesses what is intended depending on context and the statistics of language. Such software is called disambiguation software.
  • Word-based disambiguation systems use a Next function to allow the user to change the word displayed if the currently displayed word is incorrect
  • character-based systems use a Next function to allow the user to change the letter displayed if the currently displayed letter is incorrect.
  • These functions will be referred to generically as the Next function, and a key executing the function will be referred to as the Next key.
  • a keyboard with a given value of distortion is said to be optimized with respect to a typability constraint if it is among the best keyboards with respect to the typability constraint, and has substantially the given value of distortion. For example, take the typability constraint to be lookup error rate, and the distortion measure to be the number of pairwise interchanges to map the distorted keyboard to the qwerty keyboard. If the limit in distortion is 5 pairwise interchanges, then an optimized keyboard with distortion limit 5 is a keyboard with among the best lookup error rates for all keyboards with distortion 5 or less.
  • Fig. 2 Summary of some relevant prior art.
  • Fig. 3 Presentation of Dhiatensor and Dvorak keyboards.
  • FIG. 7 Block diagram of a typable device based on an ambiguous keyboard.
  • Fig. 16 Flow chart of a method for making a typability optimized keyboard with reduced distortion.
  • Fig. 17 Summary chart of embodiments illustrating typability and distortion tradeoffs.
  • FIG. 18 Flowchart of illustrative method of making a practical typability optimized keyboard with reduced distortion for a telephone keypad.
  • Fig. 19 Effective key number of the best layout found with a given value of layout range and no order distortion.
  • Fig. 20 The layouts corresponding to the points of Fig. 19.
  • FIG. 23 A illustrative best result from applying the method of Fig. 18.
  • Fig. 26 Diagram of an illustrative navigation keypad.
  • Fig. 27 An alphabetic-order preserving layout for a navigation keypad.
  • Fig. 28 A qwerty-order and two-thumb gesture preserving layout for a navigation keypad.
  • FIG. 29 A conceptual distinction layout for a navigation keypad.
  • Fig. 30 A telephone-keypad-row-preserving layout for a navigation keypad.
  • FIG. 31 An illustration of steric hindrance due to a large thumb size/key size ratio.
  • Fig. 33 An example of drumroll optimization in view of steric hindrance, by means of symbol multiplication.
  • Fig. 34 A gesture-preserving qwerty-like layout for a steering wheel.
  • FIG. 38 A first illustrative example of a chording/ambiguous code for a gaming device.
  • FIG. 39 A second illustrative example of a chording/ambiguous code for a gaming device.
  • Fig. 40 Illustrative examples of chording/ ambiguous code layouts optimized for typability and minimized for appearance distortion.
  • Fig. 41 A table illustrating the synergistic effects of partition distortion and order distortion.
  • FIG. 44 A comparison of a prior-art data device and a data-device according to the present invention.
  • Fig. 45 An illustrative example of a keypad for context-based disamiguation.
  • Fig. 46 An illustrative example of a link/unlink mechanism.
  • the disclosure begins by establishing a framework in terms of the stages of product adoption. It then explains, by means of numerous examples, the meaning of distortion and typability, and shows how to measure these.
  • Fig. 1 gives an overview of the invention, showing how the various aspects of the invention relate to the stages of maturity of the product adoption process of the user.
  • the user begins to handle the device, and tries to use it to enter text.
  • Research shows that users will typically only make a few initial experiments in entering text before abandoning the device, if these first experiments are not promising, that is, if the device seems hard to use, does not give expected results or otherwise does not "feel right" . It is thus essential that the disambiguation software does not make too many mistakes and otherwise confuse the user in this stage.
  • the number of mistakes the disambiguation software makes is related, in part, to the layout. Given a particular disambiguation method, the layout can be modified to reduce the number of mistakes.
  • One aspect of this invention is to solve the design problem which arises: modifications to the layout to reduce disambiguation mistakes typical reduce initially perceived usability, as they distort the keyboard layout from its conventional form. Thus optimizing for success in the discovery phase may conflict with optimizing for success in the encounter stage.
  • a further aspect of this invention is to provide keyboards which minimally distort gestures used to operate the conventional keyboard, and yet are optimized with respect to the disambiguation mechanism.
  • a further aspect of this invention is to perform expert interaction mechanism optimization in a way which is minimally disruptive to optimizations designed to improve user experience at earlier stages of development.
  • the qwerty keyboard (Fig. 4A) is the archetype of a conventional keyboard layout. It is well-established as a convention in the English-speaking world, and other Latin-script languages typically use a conventional keyboard which is a close variant of qwerty. An example, the azerty keyboard used in France, is shown in Fig. 4B. Though these other keyboards can be considered to be distortions of the qwerty keyboard, they are not ambiguous keyboards and they are not optimized for typability. Other conventional keyboards exist for other scripts, such as the keyboard of Fig. 4D, for the Cyrillic script.
  • the Dhiatensor keyboard (Fig. 3A and Fig. 3B) is relevant as it is an early example of a keyboard optimized for a two-finger interaction mechanism.
  • the letters are placed in order of probability, from the center outward and from bottom to top row. It is not an ambiguous keyboard, and it not a distortion of a conventional keyboard. Indeed, this keyboard was designed before there were well established conventions for typewriter keyboard layouts.
  • the Dvorak keyboard (Fig. 3C)), is optimized for an 8-fmger interaction mechanism. It seeks to minimize the distance fingers must travel to type the most common letters. It is not an ambiguous keyboard, and it is not distortion minimized. Though qwerty was well-established as a convention at the time of invention of the Dvorak keyboard, Dvorak did not attempt to conserve any part of that convention in his design.
  • the half-qwerty keyboard of Matias (US Pat. No. 5,288,158) of Fig. 6 is a gesture distortion limited keyboard. It attempts to conserve typing gestures from the qwerty keyboard by "folding" the qwerty keyboard in half, such that letters typed with a given finger on the qwerty keyboard are typed with the same finger (though perhaps of a different hand) on the half-qwerty keyboard.
  • the half-qwerty keyboard is not an ambiguous keyboard, and it is not optimized for typability.
  • Gutowitz 09/856,863 herein incorporated by reference and allowed as of the date of this present application will hereinafter be referred to as Gutowitz '317.
  • Gutowitz '317 provides a background for a number of the new inventive concepts presented here. That disclosure introduced qwerty-like partition- and order-distorted keyboards, explored the advantages of even-as- possible and non-even-as-possible layouts, and provided a focus on two-letters- per-key layouts. Some example embodiments from Gutowitz '317 are shown in Fig.5.
  • Fig. 5A shows a partition-distorted version of a conventional alphabetic layout for a telephone keypad.
  • Fig. 5A shows a partition-distorted version of a conventional alphabetic layout for a telephone keypad.
  • FIG. 5B shows a qwerty-like layout on 7 columns, with a monotonically decreasing number of letter-assigned keys per row, with partition distortion to optimize typability.
  • Fig. 5G shows a qwerty-like layout on 7 columns with partition and order distortions.
  • the number of order distortions (eight) shown in this figure is quite large compared to the "nearly-qwerty" layouts considered in this disclosure. Nor does this layout obey other order-constraints, such as the keyboard-name constraint, which will be discussed in detail below.
  • the 5-column qwerty keyboard of Fig. 4C is an even-as-possible qwerty-like keyboard.
  • This layout was used by US. Pats. 5661476 and 6295052 in a non- ambiguous way.
  • the use of ambiguous codes for qwerty-like keyboards was pioneered by Gutowitz '317, and used in a commercial setting by Research In Motion, in their model 710Ox phones.
  • This even-as-possible layout represents a severe partition constraint and thus leaves an insubstantial margin for a trade-off with typability constraints.
  • the 5-column design allows for layouts of much higher typability than the even-as-possible layout of Fig. 4C.
  • Gutowitz '317 covers both even-as-possible and non-even-as-possible ambiguous keyboards.
  • Even-as-possible is a base from which appearance distortion can be measured.
  • even-as-possible ambiguous keyboards have relatively low appearance distortion since the conventional keyboard on which they are based is trivially even-as-possible since each key has exactly one letter.
  • a reduced keyboard should preferably a) have the same letters in each row as qwerty, and b) have a monotonically decreasing number of keys with letters, as the row increases from top to bottom.
  • Fig. 14 Some sample even-as-possible keyboards with varying number of columns, and monotonic decrease are shown in Fig. 14. Since there are one or very few even-as-possible layouts for a given number and arrangement of keys, optimization for typability over the set of even-as- possible layouts is trivial.
  • the difficult problem, recognized and then solved by this invention, is to limit distortion at a non-trivial level, and then optimize typability while respecting that limit. As long as the distorted keyboard remains a small perturbation, from the conventional keyboard, consumers may be expected to accept the keyboard. The trick is to maximize typability even though the perturbation remains small. As can be seen from Fig.
  • the first even-as- possible layout which achieves even the minimal level of touch typability is the 4-column layout. It would be of significant importance to achieve touch typability with a 3-column keypad, as such keypads are extremely wide-spread. This issue will be returned to below.
  • Typability refers to properties which affect the throughput of text when an ambiguous keyboard is used to enter text. How many keystrokes are required per character? How many errors does the system make? How does it respond when a user makes an error? Typability properties have their origin in the interaction of the keyboard with the disambiguation software.
  • a typable device based on an ambiguous code has three main elements. Referring to Fig. 7, we see a block diagram outlining these elements.
  • the ambiguous keyboard 701 sends keystrokes to the disambiguation software 702, which does as well as possible to decode keystroke sequences as text, which it sends to an output 703.
  • Fig. 7. There are many factors which affect throughput of text through the device outlined in Fig. 7. Some of these are listed in the chart of Fig. 8. Some factors are related to the keyboard only, e.g. the difficulty of pressing a key, and some factors are related to the disambiguation system only, such as, in a dictionary- based system, the number of words in the dictionary. We will be often concerned with properties which arise from the interaction of keyboard and disambiguation system, such as lookup error. Lookup error is the rate at which a word-based disambiguation system will guess the wrong word, a word not intended by the user, but which has the same keystroke sequence as the word intended by the user. This property depends both on the disambiguation system and on the keyboard layout.
  • Gutowitz US Pat. No. 6,219,731, and Gutowitz '317 both hereby incorporated by reference and relied upon.
  • Gutowitz '317 defines several measures of typability for word-based disambiguation systems, notably lookup error, query error, effective key number, and levels A, B, and C of touch typability.
  • a disambiguation system with an effective key number of n has the same performance as the best that can be achieved on keyboards with n letter keys, if the letters can be arbitrarily assigned to keys to maximize typability.
  • a more relevant measure of typability is keystrokes per character.
  • the user presses a key, and then a Next key is used to advance the order of letters assigned to the key, in order of likelihood given the previously defined context of other input letters.
  • Gutowitz '731 the present Fig. 10 was presented, which shows the expected keystrokes per character as a function of the position of a letter in a word. This is done for two systems, the standard non-predictive multi-tap system available on essentially all cell phones, and the predictive character-based disambiguation of Gutowitz '731.
  • Word-based and character-based disambiguation are but aspects of the more general framework of context-based disambiguation, as discussed in Gutowitz '317.
  • Each sub-type of disambiguation may have a corresponding typability measure which is best applied to it.
  • Gutowitz '731 it is obvious even to one poorly skilled in the art to add word completion or phrase completion to any existing text-entry method without word completion or phrase completion. If word completion or any other feature is added to an existing text-based method, then the quantitative measures described herein also need to be modified to take account of the new feature, a modification which would not escape the scope of this invention.
  • the minimal distortion keyboard will have a distribution of letters over the keys which is as close to this as possible.
  • the maximal distortion keyboard will have a distribution of letters over the keys which is as far from this as possible.
  • each key in the 3x3 array has at least one letter assigned to it.
  • the next step is to assign a numerical measure to a quantum of distortion.
  • the measure chosen should be a good model of the perceptual or interactive constraint to be optimized.
  • the model and the phenomenon must be distinguished.
  • appearance distortion the phenomenon is psychological: to what degree are the reference conventional keyboard and the distorted keyboard perceived as similar?
  • a person skilled in the art of scientific method would know how to measure this phenomenon in the laboratory, and a person skilled in the art of mathematical modeling would know how to build a mathematical model of the phenomenon.
  • the mathematical model, the calculations used to perform the distortion minimization called for can be made more rapidly than by direct pyschological research.
  • Fig. 13 Two extremes are illustrated in Fig. 13.
  • the other extreme in terms of evenness is shown in Fig. 13B, which has 3 letters per key, except for one key with 2 letters.
  • measure 1) does not distinguish between Figs 13A and 13B in terms of distortion; each of Figs.
  • Fig. 13C has value 78, greater than the value 76 for Fig. 13B.
  • Fig. 13B looks less qwerty-like than Fig 13C. The reason is that in Fig. 13B several letters are not on the same row as they would be in a full qwerty keyboard, whereas in Fig. 13C, they are. This suggests modifying the measure to penalize for letters not in the correct row, e.g.
  • partition-related properties In general, we can distinguish (at least) two classes of layout properties which might be building blocks of a quantitative model of human similarity perception: partition-related properties and order-related properties. Some illustrative partition-related properties are listed in Fig. 11, and some illustrative order- related properties are listed in Fig. 12. The partition properties have to do with the distribution of letters over keys. Whereas the order-related properties relate to where each letter stands in the conventional ordering of letters as expressed in a conventional layout.
  • the first set of constraints apply to appearance distortion.
  • the second set of constraints apply to gesture distortion. We will consider various exemplary embodiments displaying combinations of these constraints with various interaction mechanisms and typability measures.
  • Exemplary partition distortions are shown in Fig. 11. These properties are related to the visual balance and harmony of the keyboard. For instance, the range of the partition, the difference between the maximum and minimum number of letters on a key, describes an evenness property.
  • An advantage of partition- related properties is that they are easily measured aspects of a layout. Whether or not the aspect is important to the psychological perception of similarity is a matter for psychological testing. From the standpoint of this invention, what is important is that a person skilled in the art could use these or other quantities as a means to development a mathematical model. The model, in turn, could be used for a basis for sifting through the space of alternate layouts to try to identify those which are best according to the essential factors identified here: typability and distortion.
  • An order distortion is a change in the order in which symbols are read from the keyboard. To define this, we must establish the conventional reading order for the keyboard. Natural written languages generally have a preferred reading order, and the keyboards used to write the language inherit the reading order. English is read from left to right, top to bottom, and the qwerty keyboard is generally read the same way. The name "qwerty" comes from reading the first six letters of the keyboard. A Hebrew keyboard would be read right to left.
  • the Dhiatensor keyboard of Figs. 3A and 3B is read from left to right, bottom row to top row, giving rise to the name "Dhiatensor” (the first letters in the reading order).
  • the "abc" keyboard of the standard ambiguous code is read left to right, top row to bottom row.
  • a given keyboard may admit multiple readings, as evidenced by multiple names.
  • the dominant convention for the "qwerty" keyboard is left to right, top row to bottom row. However, it was proposed (Neuman, Alfred E. 1964) to read the keyboard right to left, top row to bottom row, resulting in the name "poiuyt".
  • Fig. 12 gives a chart of some illustrative appearance order constraints related to order. Some of these will be used to develop embodiments of the invention below. Each constraint could be a component of a model to quantify perceived distortion. For instance, research suggests that if the first and last letters of a word are correct, but letters in the interior of the word are changed, then people can still read the word with high probability. If the same property holds for reading of conventional keyboards, then a model might give higher weight to changes which occur at the borders of the key layout than changes to the center.
  • Gesture distortion is important for those who actually use keyboards, rather than simply look at them.
  • Teen trained to touch type on qwerty who tries to touch type on a close variant such as the azerty keyboard used in France will be familiar with the effects of gesture distortion. Since some of the letters have been moved from their " correct" position, the gestures used to type those moved letters no longer give correct results.
  • Azerty touch typists experience the same effect when they try to use a qwerty keyboard.
  • the distortion of azerty with respect to qwerty is both an appearance distortion and a gesture distortion. On an ambiguous keyboard, it is possible to distort appearance without distorting gestures.
  • the letters A,B and C are assigned to key 2. Typing any of these letters involves the same gesture: reaching for the 2 key. If the key were to be labeled CBA, with the letters in reverse alphabetic order, then the appearance would be changed, but not the gestures.
  • Azerty is initially somewhat difficult to touch type for a qwerty typist, and yet azerty is initially perceived to be similar enough to qwerty to be used by a qwerty typist.
  • the goal of one aspect of this invention is to use this small margin to introduce improvements in typability. It cannot be over stressed that most commercial failures of prior-art innovations are due to their failure to recognize, let alone obey, this distortion limit.
  • a well-known method in computer science to measure the complexity of an object is the length of the shortest program needed to compute the object. Distortion can be measured in the same way.
  • the description is a set of words sufficient to allow someone knowing those words, along with any conventional knowledge well-known to those skilled in the art, to find each and every letter on the keyboard.
  • a sales person explaining the new keyboard to a potential customer e.g. "It's like qwerty, but a and z are reversed” might describe a first keyboard, and "It's like qwerty, but a is moved two keys to the right, r is moved two keys down, t is moved two keys to the left and one key down” might describe a second keyboard.
  • the first keyboard is less distorted than the second, since the first has a shorter description.
  • Step 1600 select conventional keyboard layout
  • Step 1601 select reduced spatial arrangement
  • Step 1602 select distortion measure(s)
  • Step 1603 select typability measure(s)
  • Step 1604 Evaluate the (typability, distortion) measures for a set of layouts
  • Step 1605 Select layouts which optimize typability while respecting distortion limits
  • this method will be carried out in a variety of circumstances, under a variety of design constraints, to illustrate its wide applicability.
  • Fig. 17 presents a chart giving an overview of the embodiments to be presented in detail below. Each embodiment is chosen to highlight one or more facets of the present invention, and to thus map out its scope. Upon assimilating the teachings of these embodiments, it will be clear to one skilled in the art how to construct intermediate and hybrid cases, and otherwise depart from the letter of this disclosure without departing from its spirit.
  • This embodiment is meant as an illustrative example of how the teachings of this embodiment could be applied in a real-life engineering situation, in which several constraints may be simultaneously operative. It will show how various tradeoffs between typability and distortion can be managed to meet industrial specifications.
  • the desire is for a phone which is typability maximized and appearance distortion minimized. It is agreed to measure appearance distortion in the following way: 1) Only number keys (0-9) of the standard telephone keypad may be used for letters.
  • Step 1801 Maximize typability using only row- and order- preserving transformations.
  • Step 1802 Select a subset of layouts which a) have the best typability, and b) have no more than 4 letters on a key.
  • Step 1803 Distort each layout from step 1802 in all possible ways by moving 1,2,...,n letters from their original position, placing them on the right of the keyboard, or on the 0 key. To preserve initial reading order, do not move letters to or from the left column of the keyboard, or any of the letters q,w,e,r,t,y.
  • Step 1804 Select from the layouts of step 1803 those which have a) high typability, b) short, easy-to-remember descriptions.
  • Step 1801 maximize typability using only row- and order- preserving transformations. This can be accomplished e.g. using any of the methods described in Gutowitz '317.
  • Our first goal here is to study the relationship between layout range and typability. For equal typability, lower layout range is preferred. To accomplish this, we will optimize typability (here, measured by effective key number) for each of a set of layouts in which the layout range is fixed at 1 through 7.
  • Figs. 19 and 20 The results of applying this step are shown in Figs. 19 and 20.
  • Fig. 19 the effective key number of the best layout found for each min-max range from 2 to 7 is shown as a function of the range.
  • several horizontal lines are drawn. Reading from bottom to top, these lines give: a) The effective key number of the even-as-possible code qwerty-like code on three columns. The layout of the even-as-possible code is shown in Fig. 14.
  • SAC Standard Ambiguous Code
  • c The minimum effective key number for Level A touch typability as defined by Gutowitz '317.
  • Fig. 19 The layouts corresponding to the points plotted in Fig. 19 are shown in Fig. 20, where the layouts with range 2-7 are shown in Figs. 2OA to 2OE respectively.
  • Step 1802 Select a subset of layouts which a) have the best typability, and b) have no more than 4 letters on a key.
  • Step 1803 Distort each layout from step 1802 in all possible ways by moving 1,2,...,n letters from their original position, placing them on the right of the keyboard, or on the 0 key Do not move letters from the left column of the keyboard, or any of the letters q,w,e,r,t,y.
  • step 1803 explores the effect of adding small amounts of order distortion.
  • the order distortions are limited in the hope of minimizing the perceived distortion.
  • Fig. 21 The results of this step are shown in Fig. 21.
  • the distribution in effective key number of the layouts generated with 1 through 4 order distortions is shown. It is seen that the distribution of effective key number becomes broader as the number of order distortions increases. Though the average effective key number remains approximately the same as the number of order distortions increases, it becomes possible to find layouts with better and better (and worse and worse) effective key number in the extremes of the distribution.
  • Fig. 22 shows three curves, one for each of 8, 9, and 10 letter keys. The effective key number of the best layout for the given number of order distortions and the given number of keys is shown in these curves.
  • the horizontal lines are the same as those of Fig. 19, with the addition of a line giving the effective key number of the even-as-possible code on 5 columns. This even as possible code on 5 columns is shown in Fig. 14.
  • Step 1804 From the layouts of step 1803 select those which have
  • This layout has three order distortions.
  • the letters g, 1, and u are not in their qwerty positions. They are moved to the end of the layout. The main part of the layout can thus be read without insertions, only deletions, and the deleted letters reappear at the end of the reading order.
  • the letters "glu” are pronounceable, appear in the order in which they are pronounced, and form part of an easy- to-remember mnemonic, "qwerty GLUed onto a cell phone” .
  • the effective key number is very close to the maximum which was achieved in this experiment for any layout with three order distortions.
  • FIG. 25 we see details on each of the layouts corresponding to a point on the curve of Fig. 24.
  • Fig. 25A shows again the even-as-possible keyboard on 5 columns.
  • Figs. 25B to 25E show keyboards with increasing amounts of order distortion. The letters displaced are (none), (u), (di), (diu), (lguh) for Figs. 25B to 25E respectively. It is worthwhile noting that Fig. 25B, with no order distortion, might be perceived as more appearance distorted that Fig. 250, which has one order distortion.
  • Fig. 25B has a greater range, as the largest number of letters on a key is 4 and the smallest is 1, giving a range of 3, whereas in Fig.
  • keyboards Perhaps the simplest-to-remember keyboard is one in which all letters are on the same key. In some sense, it is compatible with any convention, and the association of letters to keys is trivial to remember. Unfortunately, one-key keyboards have rather poor typability properties, regardless of how these properties are defined.
  • the next step toward a full keyboard is a two-key keyboard. At this step already, there are challenging problems for designing keyboards which are both easy-to-remember, compatible with convention, and have good typability properties. This invention shows how to overcome these challenges.
  • the two-key problem has important industrial applications. Many electronic devices which could benefit from text entry do not have a keyboard with even as many keys as a telephone keypad. A typical example is a digital camera, comprising a navigation keypad.
  • Such a keypad typically has two or more arrow keys. These could be used for text entry, if only a sufficiently accurate, sufficiently learnable method were available for such a small number of keys. Text entry would be useful, e.g., to annotate the photographs.
  • Fig. 26 non-limitatively illustrates a typical navigation keypad.
  • the center key 2605 is typically associated with the actions "accept” or “advance” .
  • Fig. 27 shows a three-key system with two letter keys, and one Next key.
  • the Next key would be used to advance letters in a character-based disambiguation system, and words in a word-based disambiguation system.
  • the alphabet is split in half, with one half on the letters on each of the letter keys.
  • a likely association of these three keys with the navigation keypad of Fig. 26 would be to associate the letter keys of Fig. 27 with two of the arrow keys of Fig. 26, and the Next key with either another letter key or the "accept" key.
  • Fig. 28 shows an alternate two-letter arrangement for a navigation keypad in which the letters of the left half of the qwerty keyboard are associated with the left letter key, and the letters of the right half of the qwerty keyboard are associated with the right letter key.
  • Fig. 28A shows the layout conceptually
  • Fig. 28B shows the qwerty layout superimposed on the two keys.
  • This keyboard has an advantage for experienced users of reduced qwerty keyboards using a two- thumb interaction method. The gestures of the thumbs are nearly the same, except that in the navigation keypad version, movement of the thumbs between keys is not required.
  • keyboards which optimize with respect to description length, without regards to appearance or gesture distortion.
  • Fig. 29 For a non-limiting example, consider the 2-letter-key layout of Fig. 29. In this keyboard, all of the consonants are assigned to the left key, and all of the vowels are on the right key. This last sentence describes the keyboard sufficiently to allow someone who knows the meaning of the words consonant and vowel to locate all of the letters on keys. This keyboard is thus easy to explain and to remember, exemplifying one aspect of the present invention.
  • Fig. 30 we see a navigation keypad in which three arrow keys are used as letter keys.
  • the letters associated to each of the keys are those of a row of the standard telephone keypad.
  • the letters A-F 2608 correspond to (ABC,DEF) on the telephone keypad
  • G-O 2606 correspond to (GHI, JKL 1 MNO) on the telephone keypad
  • This keyboard could appeal to those with advanced experience in typing on a telephone keypad.
  • the gestures used to type on the navigation keypad so constructed are similar to the gestures used for typing on the telephone keypad. Due to this careful conservation of the letter-to-row association, the keypad is easy to explain to those familiar with the telephone keypad.
  • the motor pattern to type the letter Q is "move the left thumb to the key with Q , and press the key.”
  • the pattern is edited to "left thumb press the key”.
  • the 2-key qwerty keyboard is easy.
  • Embodiment Illustrative embodiment of gesture
  • the embodiment of this section illustrates that gestures may be conserved even though the layout is radically distorted.
  • the keyboard is meant to be used by drivers while driving, without causing them to remove their hands from the steering wheel. It is meant at the same time to leverage qwerty touch typing ability through conservation of gesture.
  • a steering wheel 3401 into which a keyboard 3402 has been embedded or attached, preferably in a position which is comfortable both for typing and for steering.
  • typability measure is effective key number, then the typability of either of these layouts is rather poor, however, given the teachings of this invention, it will be appreciated that typability could be improved if strict equi-finger or equi-column gesture conservation is relaxed, e.g. by allowing movement of letters to adjacent fingers.
  • this keyboard was discussed in the context of a steering wheel embodiment, it could be useful in any device where the amount of space available for a keypad is limited, permitting only a line of keys.
  • An example might be the edge of a pocket device such as a digital camera or mp3 player. It could be used in the handlebars of a treadmill or bicycle, etc.
  • the Qwerty keyboard is widely believed to have been designed such that common pairs of letters are typed with alternating hands, e.g. th, he, qu. We will examine this assertion shortly. Reportedly, this design was meant to minimize jamming of typebars.
  • the maximization of left-right alternation had the (probably unanticipated) advantage for the touch typist of optimizing typing speed.
  • a pair of left-right alternating keystrokes can be performed partially in parallel; the movement of second hand can be planned and executed while the motion of the first hand completes. Even on a single hand, different fingers can move more or less in parallel.
  • Fig. 32 the inter keystroke time is evaluated for each of 26 alphabetic order variants 3201. In each variant the letters before the given letter on the left key, and the letters after the given letter in order on on the right key. The minimum time is for letter number 10 (j). So we have the surprising result that dividing the alphabet at j results in faster times than any other division.
  • keyboards On very small keyboards, ambiguous or not, digits (fingers or thumbs) may share keyboard “territory" with other digits.
  • digit size When the digit size is large compared with the size of keys, then the presence of a digit on a given key may hinder the ability of another digit to occupy keys which are nearby. This effect is called steric hindrance.
  • Fig. 31 we see a sequence of increasingly small keyboards, capable of being typed with two thumbs.
  • the relative sizes of keyboards and thumbs in this figure are suggestive of the relative sizes in the case of commercial handheld de- vices. It is seen that the amount of hindrance of one thumb by another depends sensitively on the keyboard size.
  • Fig. 31A when a first thumb is placed on a key, the second thumb can move to any other key which is not directly covered by the first thumb.
  • Fig. 31B a thumb may hinder not just the key it is currently pressing, but also movement to surrounding keys.
  • the hindrance may extend to a large fraction of the keypad.
  • the drumroll effect relies on the ability of one thumb' to be moved into position for its keystroke while the other thumb is performing its keystroke. With hindrance, one thumb must wait for the other to be displaced, after making its keystroke, if the target of the second thumb is in the hindered region of the first thumb.
  • the hindrance may be complete or partial, depending on the keyboard size and geometry, and the pair of keys to be pressed in the drumroll.
  • the final design of a keyboard to minimize digit hindrance will depend on how well known these factors are, and how well they are captured in a mathematical model.
  • the present invention teaches the use of some model to measure hindrance.
  • This model is inspired by that of MacKenzie, I. S., & Soukoreff, R. W. (2002). A model of two-thumb text entry. Proceedings of Graphics Interface 2002, pp. 117-124. Toronto: Canadian Information Processing Society.
  • any letter pair where the second letter is on the same or an adjacent key is treated as being effectively on the same key.
  • the double-tap time is used. If two letters are not on adjacent keys, then 1/2 of the double-tap time is used.
  • drumroll effect in the presence of steric hindrance can be optimized both by partition and order distortions, following the methods described above, and using a model such as the one presented above. Optimizations can also be made by modifying the physical structure of the keyboard. For example, keys could be spread out or changed in shape to increase the likelihood of a sequential pair of symbols being entered with a drumroll.
  • The, symbol could be a frequent letter, such as the letter e in English, or a frequent punctuation symbol, such as the space symbol, or a frequently used functional symbol such as "Next" or "Shift” .
  • the positions of the multiplied symbol are chosen such that, given the interaction mechanism, one or another representation of the symbol can often be input in a drumroll sequence, avoiding steric hindrance effects.
  • one of the multiplied symbols is preferably "Next" , since the Next function is often needed.
  • the shift key may be chosen to be one of the multiplied symbols.
  • a telephone keypad 330 with 9 alphanumeric keys 3300-3309, and two Next keys 3311 and 3312.
  • the Next key is multiplied, that is, represented on more than one key.
  • the Next function is chosen to be multiplied in anticipation that character- based disambiguation will be used.
  • the Next function can be very commonly used, more often used than any letter or punctuation symbol.
  • Fig. 33 the keys on which to place the multiplied symbol are chosen in view of a two thumb interaction mechanism.
  • This sequence will take 4 double-tap time units, plus the time it takes to move the right thumb from the pqrs key to the Next key. If the keypad were larger, such that the left thumb could be moved to the Next key while the right thumb is on the pqrs key, then the following sequence of keystrokes could be used:
  • the first two steps are combined into a drumroll, since they involve both thumbs so the second step takes 1/2 of the double-tap time.
  • the total time is 3 1/2 double-tap time units.
  • the time is 2 1/2 double-tap times, even if the keypad is very small.
  • the multiplication of the Next key essentially eliminates steric hindrance as regards the Next key. It improves the throughput (number of symbols entered per unit time) even on large keypads, and has a more dramatic effect on small keypads.
  • the shift key is generally the best candidate to be multiplied, so that the shift key of the embodiment below could well be represented on both 3311 and 3312. It should be evident that if the number of available keys is sufficient, then the 2nd, 3rd, ..., nth most frequent symbols could be multiplied as well, and that the position in the layout of these multiplied symbols should be chosen so as to minimize steric hindrance and maximize the drumroll effect.
  • the keyboard must be typable, and must have typability no worse than the standard ambiguous code, assuming word- based disambiguation.
  • the effective key number In order for the typability to be no worse than the standard ambiguous code, the effective key number must be no less than that of the standard ambiguous code, that is, 6.0. In order to limit appearance distortion, we may attempt to use as a base layout any qwerty-like layout for the telephone keypad with only partition distortions and such that the effective key number is at least 6.0. We may then consider all possible ways of shifting one letter from each of the keys on each of the layouts, and evaluating the effective key number of the shifted keyboard.
  • Fig. 35 On the left are shifted layouts derived from the non-order distorted layouts, and on the right, the shifted layouts corresponding to qwerty-glu are shown. Plotted are the effective key number of the base layout vs. the effective key number of each of the corresponding shifted layouts.
  • the layout 3501 may be chosen. This layout is more fully shown in Fig. 36. In the full view, the shifted letter on each key is shown in an italic font, whereas the unshifted letters are shown in normal font. Similarly, if the desire is to favor typability of the base layout over typability of the shifted layout, but order distortions are not permitted, then layout 3502 (Figs. 35 and 36) may be chosen.
  • Fig. 35 There are many shifted layouts corresponding to each base layout. To select a single shifted layout from the set of shifted layouts corresponding to the base layout qwerty-glu, we may consider the economy of description constraint discussed above. The over-all best layout considering only typability is identified as 3503 in Figs. 35 and 36. We see that for layout 3503 the shifted letter is the last letter on each of the keys 1 and 7, and the first letter on each of the other letter keys. To minimize the description length, one may prefer a layout in which all of the keys have either the first or the last letter as the shifted letter.
  • All keys with the last letter shifted is the layout 3504 of Figs. 35 and 36, and all keys with the first letter shifted is layout 3505 of Figs. 35 and 36.
  • layout 3504 is intermediate in terms of familiar description, and intermediate in terms of typability.
  • 3503 is excellent in terms of typability, but requires more description.
  • Disambiguation software can be used to resolve many of these ambiguities. For instance, an azerty keyboard is a distortion of the qwerty keyboard for a person trained to type on qwerty. If such a person attempts to type English on an azerty keyboard, they will often type "zhat” since "what" is a frequent word in English, and the letters w and z are reversed in position from qwerty to azerty. Since "zhat” is not a common word in English, disambiguation software could be designed to automatically replace each occurrence of "zhat” with "what” . While the basic idea is simple, practical difficulties arise in many instances. The user may have wished to type "zhat", perhaps as an abbreviation. In this case, replacing "zhat” with "what” would be an error. It may be difficult for the disambiguation software to determine if "zoo” was typed correctly, or "woo” was meant, since neither is uncommon.
  • disambiguation software can be an aid in the beginning of learning, and a hindrance later. It is thus desirable for the strength of distortion- compensation disambiguation to be adjustable. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways. The preferred way would be to compute the likelihood of a sequence both with respect to the conventional keyboard and the distorted keyboard, given the statistics of the language. This computation would be evident to those skilled in the arts of statistics and probability theory. Then, a user- adjustable parameter which sets a threshold such that sequences which are closer than the threshold in likelihood are not automatically rewritten, while when sequences are far apart in likelihood, and the conventional sequence is most likely, the distorted sequence is replaced with the convention sequence.
  • Step 3701 A likelihood threshold is set. This setting might be under user control, or might be set in hardware or software, perhaps on the basis of analysis of user behavior.
  • the likelihood threshold determines the relative weight given to the conventional keyboard or the distorted keyboard interpretation of keystroke sequences.
  • Step 3702 A letter sequence K entered by user
  • Step 3703 software computes possibly intended sequence assuming both distorted and non-distorted keyboard.
  • Step 3704 If the sequence is significantly more likely when interpreted as typed on the non-distorted keyboard, then the non-distorted interpretation is output, otherwise, the distorted keyboard interpretation is output.
  • chording in this context can mean any mechanism for distinguishing a subset of letters from a set, such as the set of letters assigned to a given key.
  • chording in this context can mean any mechanism for distinguishing a subset of letters from a set, such as the set of letters assigned to a given key.
  • the present embodiment is described in terms of a gaming device. On this gaming device the letter-assigned keys are not labelled with letters at all. The main purpose the machine is to play games, not to enter text, and the keys are labeled to serve the gaming purpose. It is thus important for this embodiment, as it has been for other embodiments, that the assignment of letters to keys be simple to learn and memorize.
  • the conventional ordering to be the alphabetic ordering of English
  • the conventional partition to be the standard partition of the letters onto the telephone keypad
  • Fig. 39 An example layout is shown in Fig. 39, where the unshifted, shifted letter-key assignments are shown on the screen (3810) in Figs. 39A and 39B respectively.
  • the code is abcd-efg-hijkl-irm-opqr-s-t-uvwxyz. It has an effective key number of 6.8, and a lookup error rate of 42 based on our reference statistics. This is a significant improvement over the standard telephone keypad code.
  • the higher- than-average and lower-than-average partition elements nearly alternate when the elements are in alpha, and can be made to alternate with minimal order distortion: (abcd,hijkl,opqr,uvwxyz) assigned to keys (3801-3804) in the unshifted mode (Fig. 39A) and (efg,mn,s,t) assigned to keys (3801-3804) in the shifted mode (Fig. 39B).
  • abcd,hijkl,opqr,uvwxyz assigned to keys (3801-3804) in the unshifted mode (Fig. 39A)
  • Fig. 40 we see a table of codes adaptable to this situation, but varying in the the number of shifted letters, from 4 to 12. For each number of shifted letters, the ambiguous code with the highest effective key number is shown. Also shown is the total probability of the shifted letters, and the set of shifted letters, in alphabetic order.
  • the code of Fig. 39 corresponds to the line with 7 shifted letters in the table of Fig. 40. Its effective key number is the highest of any in this sample, which is why it was chosen above. If the learnabitity constraint were judged more important than the typability constraint, then the code in Fig. 40 with four shifted letters might be chosen instead. The shifted letters for this code "erst" are particularly simple to remember. Unfortunately, the four-shift ed-letter code has an effective key number of only 5.6, even less than that of the standard telephone code. In another situation, typability might be judged to be best measured by the minimal probability of a shifted letter combined with a high effective key number. This would lead to the choice of the five-shifted-letter code of Fig.
  • the 3- column qwerty-like keyboard of Fig. 23 This keyboard may be "expanded" as far as an unambiguous 10-column keyboard with the same order distortion, as shown in Fig. 43.
  • a range of keyboards each with the same order distortion, though potentially different partitions, each element of the range adopted for a different device form factor. For instance, a device whose primary functions are phone-like might use a 3-column version, a primarily handheld data terminal device might use a 4-6 column version, and a device with laptop-like functionality might use a 7-10 column version.
  • the first data column presents the best qwerty-like code found with no order distortion and an even-as-possible layout.
  • the second data column labeled EAP-glu gives the values for the best order-distorted keyboard having the same order distortion as the keyboard of Fig. 23, with an even-as-possible partition.
  • the third data column labeled non-EAP, gives the results for the best qwerty-like non-even-as-possible, non-order-distorted layout found.
  • the fourth data column, labeled non-EAP-glu gives the results for the best non-even-as-possible partition with an order distortion as in Fig. 23.
  • Fig. 42 shows the 3-column layout of Fig. 23 paired to a telephone
  • Fig. 42B shows a 5-column layout paired to a telephone-like device which also has some data features
  • Fig 42G shows a 6-column layout paired to a mainly data device
  • Fig. 42D shows a 7-column layout paired to a laptop-like device. Users who familiarize themselves with the order distortion by using any one of these devices could immediately adapt to any other one of the devices.
  • the device designer can chose a keyboard which produces the best typability possible with their device, with acceptable key size. This is in striking contrast to the prior art where designers of small devices attempt to shoehorn a full qwerty keyboard onto the device by making the keys unusably small.
  • Fig. 44A shows a prior-art handheld data device with a full qwerty keyboard.
  • Fig. 44B shows the same device modified according to this invention to support a 6-column layout.
  • Fig. 44C shows two keys of the prior-art device of Fig. 44A laid out on top of a single key from the novel device of Fig. 44B. It is seen that the novel keys are much bigger than the prior-art keys, and thus much easier to press with the ringers or thumbs of adult humans.
  • variable layout embodiment entails numerous subsidiary problems which can be resolved through the application of additional inventive insight.
  • Three broad classes of problems, along with their solutions, will now be disclosed. These problems, though particularly acute in the context of variable layouts, may arise in much broader contexts, without reference to variable layouts.
  • the three classes of problems are 1) the assignment of punctuation and digit symbols to keys, 2) the definition of user functions which aid word-based or context-based disambiguation, and 3) the assignment of symbols from multiple languages simultaneously to the same set of keys.
  • Gutowitz and Jones '264 hereby incorporated by reference and relied upon, disclosed an easy-to-remember scheme for assigning punctuation to keys such that the morphic and functional similarity between symbols, in particular between punctuation symbols and digits, is maximized.
  • a problem to be grappled with in applying the invention of '264 to the variable-layout embodiment of the present invention is that the number of keys varies. In particular, the number of keys may be greater than or less than the number of digits. In the case of number of keys less than the number of digits, one strategy is to place several digits on a key, and provide some mechanism for selecting which digit is needed.
  • the punctuation-digit associations of '264 may be applied directly; every digit assigned to a key will have its morphically similar punctuation assigned to the same key. In the case that the number of keys is greater than the number of digits, morphic similarity as taught by '264 may still be used to select an assignment of symbols to keys which is easy to remember and discoverable.
  • the preferred scheme for the variable-layout embodiment is to extend the concept of digit to "digit mode" and the concept of punctuation to "punctuation mode". Symbols in digit mode are preferable digits themselves or digit-like symbols, in a discoverable sense. Similarly, symbols in punctuation mode are punctuation symbols themselves, or symbols which are discoverably "punctuation like". By selectively adding symbols to both modes as the layout grows in key number, the morphic similarity between digit symbols and punctuation symbols can be extended to cover the entire range of variable layout size.
  • FIG. 45 A non-limiting example of a layout produced by this method is shown in Fig. 45.
  • each of the keys 4501-4518 is able to input symbols in any of four modes: alphabetic lower case, alphabetic upper case, digit, and punctuation.
  • the keyboard is equipped with mode keys 4520,4522,4523 to cause the keyboard to enter digit, punctuation, and alphabetic upper case mode respectively. It also has a Next key 4519 effective to produce either the next ambiguous word or next ambiguous character, depending on whether word-based or character-disambiguation is used in the current mode.
  • each of the keys 4501-4518 comprise an upper and a lower region. In the upper region, symbols from digit and punctuation modes are shown, and in the lower region, symbols from the alphabetic modes are shown.
  • the digit mode symbols are in the left part of the upper region of each key, and the digit mode key is on the left part of the keyboard.
  • the punctuation mode symbols are to the right, as is the punctuation mode key.
  • the device shown is imagined to be destined for the American market, and thus the dollar sign is shown in digit mode on key 4502.
  • the dollar sign is paired to the ampersand in punctuation mode on key 4502, since the ampersand is morphically similar to the dollar sign.
  • the assignments to digit mode for the remaining four keys will be discussed below in the context of functions for word-based or context-based disambiguation.
  • punctuation mode 10 punctuation symbols are associated with digits in direct application of the teachings of '264.
  • An additional four punctuation symbols are associated with the corresponding members of digit mode on the same key so as to maximize morphic and/or functional similarity.
  • the punctuation mode symbols for the remain four keys will be discussed below in the context of functions for word-based or context-based disambiguation.
  • Symbols in punctuation mode are, to the extent possible, punctuation- like in shape and/or function, and related in shape and/or function to the symbol or symbols in digit mode on the same key.
  • the mode key for digits is placed on the side of the keyboard corresponding to the side of the key on which digit symbols are placed, and correspondingly for the punctuation mode key and the punctuation symbols.
  • the mode key for digits is placed on the side of the keyboard corresponding to the side of the key on which digit symbols are placed, and correspondingly for the punctuation mode key and the punctuation symbols.
  • several mode-changing functions may be assigned to a single key.
  • word-based or context-based disambiguation When word-based or context-based disambiguation is available, alone or in combination with character-based disambiguation, it is desirable to provide a variety of functions to a) manage changes between word-based or context-based and character-based disambiguation b) manage the lists of words which are truly ambiguous, and c) manage the user dictionary, if available.
  • An aspect of this invention is to provide these functions in a way which • is compatible with the variable-layout embodiment of this invention, as well as fixed-layout keyboards,
  • Event There is exactly one word in the dictionary which corresponds to the keystroke sequence, and it is not the intended word. Event: erase the word, re-enter the word with a different input method, either a non-ambiguous method or a character-prediction mechanism.
  • Event There are several words in the dictionary which corresponds to the keystroke sequence, including the intended word.
  • Action scroll the list of words until the intended word appears.
  • Event There are several words in the dictionary which corresponds to the keystroke sequence, but none are the intended word.
  • Action scroll though the entire list of words until it is verified that the word is not found. Then delete the word, and re-enter the word with a different input method.
  • Event The user realizes that a typing mistake has occurred
  • Action delete characters one-by-one until the result of the mistaken keystroke is deleted.
  • Event The user anticipates that the system can properly complete the word based on an initial few characters.
  • Action activate word completion.
  • Event The user anticipates that the system will not display the correct word, even if all keystrokes are entered properly, since it has performed an unpromising retroactive change.
  • Action undo last retroactive change, enter alternate text-entry mode.
  • These actions all include at least one display management function, but may include other functions as well, such as prediction mode management functions.
  • Three prediction mode management functions are listed above, though there may of course be others. Entering the alternate input mode is required, e.g. when an intended word is not in the dictionary, so word-based disambiguation will not work and context-based disambiguation may not work.
  • the user may be provided also with a function to re-enter the home mode.
  • the "undo last retroactive change" functionality is described in detail in '264. Its has the effect of helping the user avoid deleting an entire word if it is believed that word-based or context-based will not work to correctly display the intended word. It undoes only the last retroactive change, leaving the previously entered beginning of the word intact.
  • the set of character mode management functions is relatively straight forward. Given the assignment of all of digits, punctuation, and letters to keys as described in detail above, it is preferably to allow the user to select which of these types of symbols will be input. It is preferably, therefore, to provide the user with functions to enter, digit, punctuation, and capitalization mode, as well as to return to the home mode, which in this example is lower-case alphabetic mode. It is preferably to provide a function to make any given mode be "sticky" that is to set the keyboard so that it remains in the given mode until "unstuck" by another function. A familiar example of such a function is the Caps Lock function. However, any of the modes could be made to lock, and there might distinct function to lock each mode, or a generalized function applying to which ever mode is current.
  • a word-based disambiguation system depends on a dictionary of words.
  • No dictionary of finite size can contain all the words or, more generally, sequences of symbols, that a user may wish to input. To reduce this problem, one may provide the user the ability to augment the dictionary with new words. A function to insert words in the dictionary may therefore be provided. Conversely, it may be desirable to eliminate words stored in the dictionary, for instance if they are rarely used or misspelled. There may be several words in the dictionary which correspond to the same keystroke sequence. These will be presented to the user in some default order, determined for example by the probability of the words, time of last use of the word, or some other automatic scheme. The user may wish to change that default order, and a function for this may be provided.
  • new functions may be generated by association of elementary functions into macro functions. These macro functions would be particularly useful to users who often use given sequences of elementary functions.
  • One aspect of this invention is to identify particular macro functions of surprising utility for word- and context-based disambiguation mechanisms.
  • a further aspect of this invention is to assign elementary functions to keys such that the discoverability, usability, and configurability of the keyboard is maximized.
  • criterion I which is that the layout should provide as many functions as possible directly from the base mode, including the most important functions.
  • criterion I there is always a tradeoff between the satisfaction of criterion I, and the criteria of minimization of distortion and maximization of typability.
  • Keys in base mode could be used to provide either functions or for letter assignment. The more keys which are used for letter assignment, the better the typability, other things being equal.
  • the application of the teachings of this aspect of the embodiment must not be understood as limited to the particular keyboard of Fig. 45.
  • our goal in this embodiment is to satisfy criterion I while allowing keyboards which axe similar in the sense of belonging to the same variable-layout family to have similar function-to-key assignments as well as symbol-to-key assignments. It will be appreciated that criterion I could be applied in a much broader context than the present embodiment.
  • Next word or Next letter 4519 enter digit mode 4520, enter punctuation mode 4522 and enter upper case mode 4523, are all given separate keys, making these function available in base mode, indeed any mode. This satisfies criterion I for these functions.
  • Other functions are available in either digit or punctuation mode, or via a menu.
  • criterion II which states that a layout should not require more than one function to be done with a single keystroke or gesture, and yet provide for functions to be selectably combined.
  • criterion III we will introduce eight additional functions, available in the single gesture of pressing either the digit mode key (4520) or the punctuation mode key (4522) in combination with one of the letter-assigned keys (4503-4506).
  • the first pair consists of menu-entering functions, the enter further functions menu function, obtained by pressing the digit mode key 4520 in combination with key 4503, and the enter preferences menu function, obtained by pressing the punctuation mode 4522 key in combination with key 4503.
  • the second pair consists of word deletion/demotion functions. Represented by a recycle symbol on key 4504, the demote word function is obtained by pressing the digit mode key 4520 in combination with key 4504. Represented by a trash can on key 4504, the delete word from dictionary function is obtained by pressing the punctuation mode key 4522 in combination with key 4504.
  • delete word 2005/014211 would remove a word completely from the dictionary. It may be that deletion is limited to words which had been previously added by the user, "demote word” would typically move the given word to the bottom of the list of alternatives for a given keystroke sequence. It might also, for example, be set to move the word down one in the list, rather than completely to the bottom of the list. Clearly, repeated application of the word demotion function could serve to put the list in any desired order.
  • the third pair of functions change the aggressiveness of the prediction function.
  • the word completion function is obtained by pressing the punctuation mode key 4522 in combination with key 4505. Word completion will fill in the rest of the word based on the system's best guess as to which word is intended by the user, based on the part of the word already entered. This is an increase in the aggressiveness of prediction.
  • the enter alternate text-entry mode function reduces the aggressiveness of prediction.
  • the alternate text-entry mode typically character-based prediction, is less aggressive than the default mode, typically word-based prediction. The character-based prediction attempts only to predict the next letter, rather than the whole word.
  • Word completion is more aggressive than standard word-based prediction in that it predicts letters even for keystrokes which have not yet been made.
  • the enter alternate text-entry mode function is obtained by pressing the digit mode key 4520 in combination with key 4505.
  • the visual distinction of filled vs. empty is here used to suggested more vs. less aggressive, and the theme is carried as far as possible to other pairs of functions. It will be appreciated that other visual distinctions could be used for this purpose.
  • the fourth pair of functions are delete from the display functions.
  • the delete word function deletes the last word from the display, but does not remove it from the dictionary. It is obtained by pressing the punctuation mode key 4522 in combination with key 4506.
  • the delete character function deletes the last character from the display, and does not alter the dictionary. It is obtained by pressing the punctuation mode key 4520 in combination with key 4506.
  • these assignments to 4506 a) put similar functions on the same key, and b) place the less aggressive of the pair of functions on a given key in digit mode.
  • actions should not be linked by default since i) complicated actions are hard for novices to master, and ii) some users may prefer to keep these actions separate, or combine them in different ways. For instance, another user might like to make a still longer chain of actions consisting of b) delete the word c) switch to an alternate text-input method, and e) add the word to the dictionary once typed, in the lowest position. Still another user might prefer the latter sequence, but with the added word made first in the list.
  • This aspect of this invention solves these problems for all of these users by supplying easily accessible atomic functions, combined with a mechanism for linking the atomic functions into compounds.
  • a link/unlink mechanism 4600 implemented as a link/unlink menu.
  • the link/unlink menu allows users to set up pre-selected combinations of atomic functions. Preferably, it also allows the user to define combinations of atomic functions.
  • a function designer 4601 appear in the the link/unlink menu 4600. It has 4 components: 1) a checkbox 4602. If checked, the items are linked, and moved to the top portion of the menu, as for example linked action sequences 4606 and 4607. 2) the icon of the first function 4603, 3) the icon of the second function 4604 , 4) a help function 4605.
  • the function designer may be used in a number of ways.
  • a first way which we will called help-driven, is to scroll through the list of help messages 4605.
  • Each message is a description of what a function combination of first and second functions will achieve, explaining the advantages and disadvantages of each. If the user wants to perform that action, they link the functions by checking the checkbox 4602.
  • a second way to design links is to scroll the first icons 4603, and then second icons 4604.
  • the help function will then explain apply to the chosen combination. Note that not all combinations of first and second functions may make sense for text entry, and the menu will preferably limit the choice of second function to only those second functions which are reasonable given the current choice of first function.
  • Non-limiting examples of function combinations which some users may prefer include:
  • Next character is pressed in word-based disambiguation mode, the typical situation is that the user has lost confidence in the system to correctly find the intended word. Therefore, they may prefer that the system enters alternate text entry mode for the input of the rest of the word.
  • the system may be set to revert to word-based disambiguation when a non-letter character is input.
  • criterion IV which states that it is desirable that the layout be such that functions are easy to perform using two thumbs in combination, especially in view of steric hindrance.
  • Reduction of steric hindrance entails that any gesture to be performed by two thumbs pressing two keys, substantially simultaneously or in quick succession, should be performed on keys which are separated from each other as far as possible.
  • Fig. 45 Such an arrangement is shown in Fig. 45. It will be appreciated that the arrangement of Fig. 45 may not be compatible with all members of a variable-layout family. In particular, for the 3-column layout discussed above, an arrangement of the digits in the familiar telephone keypad fashion may be preferred.
  • any disambiguation mechanism can be improved via diligent application of the discoveries and techniques revealed in the present disclosure.

Abstract

L'invention concerne un clavier ambigu apte à la frappe et similaire aux claviers classiques pour les utilisateurs experts comme pour les novices. La topologie des touches implique la réduction du nombre de touches (5101-4523) et l'emplacement de plusieurs lettres sur chacune d'elles (5101-4523), en vue de l'adaptation à la taille réduite du clavier, sans compromettre de manière notable l'aptitude à la saisie de textes.
PCT/US2005/014211 2005-01-27 2005-04-26 Claviers ambigus optimises en termes d'aptitude a la frappe et a distorsion reduite WO2006080935A1 (fr)

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EP05742146A EP1851856A4 (fr) 2005-01-27 2005-04-26 Claviers ambigus optimises en termes d'aptitude a la frappe et a distorsion reduite
US11/814,769 US20080138135A1 (en) 2005-01-27 2005-04-26 Typability Optimized Ambiguous Keyboards With Reduced Distortion
AU2005325740A AU2005325740B2 (en) 2005-01-27 2005-04-26 Typability optimized ambiguous keyboards with reduced distortion
CA002596093A CA2596093A1 (fr) 2005-01-27 2005-04-26 Claviers ambigus optimises en termes d'aptitude a la frappe et a distorsion reduite

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WO2008055355A1 (fr) * 2006-11-10 2008-05-15 Research In Motion Limited Mappage d'un clavier de téléphone tactile sur un dispositif portatif
EP2040147A1 (fr) * 2007-08-31 2009-03-25 Research In Motion Limited Dispositif électronique portatif et procédé correspondant fournissant la désambiguïsation d'une entrée ambiguë et fournissant sélectivement la prédiction de caractères futurs
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US8036878B2 (en) 2005-05-18 2011-10-11 Never Wall Treuhand GmbH Device incorporating improved text input mechanism
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WO2013123124A1 (fr) * 2012-02-15 2013-08-22 Keyless Systems Ltd. Systèmes d'entrée de données améliorés
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Cited By (14)

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Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
USRE43082E1 (en) 1998-12-10 2012-01-10 Eatoni Ergonomics, Inc. Touch-typable devices based on ambiguous codes and methods to design such devices
US8036878B2 (en) 2005-05-18 2011-10-11 Never Wall Treuhand GmbH Device incorporating improved text input mechanism
US9606634B2 (en) 2005-05-18 2017-03-28 Nokia Technologies Oy Device incorporating improved text input mechanism
US8374846B2 (en) 2005-05-18 2013-02-12 Neuer Wall Treuhand Gmbh Text input device and method
US8374850B2 (en) 2005-05-18 2013-02-12 Neuer Wall Treuhand Gmbh Device incorporating improved text input mechanism
GB2456956A (en) * 2006-11-10 2009-08-05 Research In Motion Ltd Mapping a touchtone telephone keypad on a handheld device
GB2456956B (en) * 2006-11-10 2011-11-23 Research In Motion Ltd Mapping a touchtone telephone keypad on a handheld device
US7642934B2 (en) 2006-11-10 2010-01-05 Research In Motion Limited Method of mapping a traditional touchtone keypad on a handheld electronic device and associated apparatus
EP1921535A1 (fr) * 2006-11-10 2008-05-14 Research In Motion Limited Dispositif électronique portable comprenant l'exécution automatique de la ponctuation dans une entrée numérique, et procédé associé
WO2008055355A1 (fr) * 2006-11-10 2008-05-15 Research In Motion Limited Mappage d'un clavier de téléphone tactile sur un dispositif portatif
EP2040147A1 (fr) * 2007-08-31 2009-03-25 Research In Motion Limited Dispositif électronique portatif et procédé correspondant fournissant la désambiguïsation d'une entrée ambiguë et fournissant sélectivement la prédiction de caractères futurs
US9043700B2 (en) 2007-08-31 2015-05-26 Blackberry Limited Handheld electronic device and associated method providing disambiguation of an ambiguous input and selectively providing prediction of future characters
US8713432B2 (en) 2008-06-11 2014-04-29 Neuer Wall Treuhand Gmbh Device and method incorporating an improved text input mechanism
WO2013123124A1 (fr) * 2012-02-15 2013-08-22 Keyless Systems Ltd. Systèmes d'entrée de données améliorés

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