WO2014042505A1

WO2014042505A1 - Arrangement of alphanumeric symbols and control commands for entering text in electronic devices

Info

Publication number: WO2014042505A1
Application number: PCT/MX2013/000105
Authority: WO
Inventors: Jorge Alberto ÁLVAREZ MÁRQUEZ
Original assignee: Alvarez Marquez Jorge Alberto
Priority date: 2012-09-11
Filing date: 2013-09-09
Publication date: 2014-03-20

Abstract

The invention relates to a utility model in the form of an arrangement and distribution of alphanumeric symbols and control commands for entering text into electronic devices using thumbs, which maximise the use of the space designated for the keyboard on said devices and allow a better understanding of the positioning of the alphanumeric symbols on the keyboard, improving adaptation and comfortably accelerating the writing of text. The arrangement and distribution characterised by grouping the spaces provided for the symbols of the most frequently used letters, and phonetic positioning of the main consonants, allow a personalisation of preferences according to the user's most dexterous hand, thereby reducing the distance covered by the fingers in order to enter the symbols and the quantity of repetitive movements that can predispose users to injuries such as tendinitis, tensynovitis and arthritis.

Description

Accommodation of alphanumeric symbols and control commands for entering text to electronic devices.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention, as expressed in this specification, relates in general to a novel arrangement and distribution of alphanumeric symbols and control commands for entering text to electronic devices manipulated by the thumbs, which include cell phones, positioning systems global, portable music players and smart tablets, presenting the special feature of facilitating the access of the previously mentioned fingers to the most frequently used letters in the Spanish and English language.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

At present, the cell phone has become a very important tool in everyday life worldwide, especially the writing of text messages, short documents, forums, notes, social networks and all the writings that a person usually requires for their communication and daily organization they have become a common process with an impressive demand lowering the costs of modern communication. Within the scope of electronic devices, such as cell phones, global positioning systems, portable music players and smart tablets, usually they have small keyboards, which by means of buttons or keys the user can enter control commands to these dispositives.

One of the most common accommodations of a keyboard has the number buttons from 0 to 9, with special symbol buttons such as, * and #, as well as buttons for the call start and end commands. As electronic devices use the input of letters and other symbols for writing text, they share the number buttons with alphabetic symbols because their size is very small. This keyboard is known as "alphanumeric keyboard" and the arrangement of symbols and commands makes this type of keyboard very limited, dividing the alphabet and symbols between nine buttons, to reach the desired letter or symbol tends to press repeatedly the buttons and thus go through all the options offered by each button, it is because of these characteristics that it is very slow and very impractical the way to elaborate texts on these devices.

Another of the most commonly used keyboards, known as "QWERTY" due to the first six letters of the upper alphabetic row, was designed for a typewriter and patented in the United States in 1878 by Christopher Latham Sholes, which is the product of modifications to increase the speed with which it was written, thanks to a readjustment of Sholes and Amos Densmore.

The arrangement of the letters and symbols on this keyboard is very congested and makes it difficult to access them.

For a few years it has appeared on the list of diseases of the "American Phisical Therapy Assotiation" (APTA) and in other associations the BlackBerry thumb syndrome (BlackBerry Thumb Symdrome). It is a disease caused by the excessive use of the movement of the thumb, where there is an inflammation of the tendon of the base of the thumb caused by repetitive and long-lasting movements. It is very common in people who use mobile devices with the "QWERTY" keyboard.

Today there are people who are able to type a large number of words per minute and with great precision, or spend many minutes a day typing on a keyboard where the buttons reserved for the letters are much smaller than a keyboard designed to use the 10 fingers, and it is these people who have a high risk of being able to suffer from this disease.

The thumb is not the finger with greater dexterity in the hand, it is designed as a stabilizer to hold with another finger. Is For this reason, the "QWERTY" keyboard was designed with such dimensions to be used with the 10 fingers.

Repetitive movements may predispose users to injuries of various types, such as tendonitis, inflammation of the tendons, tenosynovitis, increased production of synovial fluid in serous pockets, or worsen until they reach arthritis. Entering the letters, symbols and commands on buttons of such small dimensions makes navigation through the keyboard difficult. Due to the size, people press the buttons with greater force compared to larger buttons, that is, the thumbs make a greater effort on this type of keyboard.

USES, OBJECTS AND ADVANTAGES OF THE INVENTION

Basically, the object of the invention relates to a new arrangement of alphanumeric symbols and control commands, distributing these in a limited number of buttons with larger dimensions to those currently used in keyboards, particularly applied to electronic devices, such as cell phones, global positioning systems, portable music players and smart tablets, making text writing a more convenient and faster activity for users of such devices, without aggravating the physical health of them. One of the considerable advantages for the use of electronic devices, which include telephones Cell phones, global positioning systems, portable music players and smart tablets, is that the novel arrangement presents a logical distribution of the letters of the Latin or Roman alphabet used in the Spanish and English languages, which makes it easier for users to write texts with greater speed and accuracy of how it has been done so far. This keyboard has been designed to be controlled by the thumbs of both hands in a more precise way and with less risk of serious consequences on the physical well-being of the user, avoiding the damages that have been presented by the excessive use of buttons that are they find out of reach of the thumbs causing unnecessary efforts.

As another advantage, it can be considered that people who are not familiar with the accommodation of existing keyboards, can adapt to this new accommodation more easily and quickly, and people who are already users of another type of keyboard will not have problems when adapt, since based on studies of repetitiveness of letters in words when making a paragraph in the Spanish and English languages, groups of letters have been identified and distributed with a high frequency of occurrence in the writing of texts, as well as a location Phonetics of the main consonants. Even more, the distribution will allow alphanumeric symbols and control commands to be profiled to the thumb with greater user dexterity, if a person is right-handed, the vowels, which are the most frequently used letters, both in the Spanish and English languages, are positioned in the column on the end of the right side, thus being closer to the ^■ thumb of the right side, making it more agile and Fast marking of them. This distribution can easily be adapted for left-handed people, only by changing the column of the vowels to the left side, including the letter "U", so that a more accessible positioning to the thumb with greater skill is obtained.

Brief description of the present invention.

Specifically, the alphanumeric symbols, used by the Spanish and English languages, are distributed on the buttons of a keyboard accommodating them according to the repetitiveness of each symbol, the dimensions of these can be increased for their best location within the keyboard of electronic devices such as cell phones, global positioning systems, portable music players and smart tablets.

For control commands, there is a button below the first column for "Alt", the "Modifier Key", and a row at the bottom that includes the "OK" button, to give access and advance of the applications, the "Shift / Shift" command, the space bar, the "Enter" button or "Carriage Return", for beginning of paragraph, and "YES" AND "NO" commands.

The vowels, which are the most frequently used letters, both in the Spanish and English languages, are positioned in the column at the far end of the right side, with the exception of the letter "U", which is in the penultimate left position to the right of the fourth row, thus being closer to the thumb. On the first line you will find the letters "B", "C", "D", "G", "P", "T" which are phonetically very similar and easy to remember, which would speed up your location on the keyboard and thus the process of entering symbols for writing is accelerated. On the other hand in the English language this same concept is fulfilled, so there is equivalence in both languages.

The second and third row contain the letters of the alphabet consecutively removing those already used in the first row and the vowels except for the first letter of the second row in which the symbol of the letter "V" is positioned. The fourth row contains the letters "Ñ", "X", "Y", "Z".

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION AND BETTER WAY TO CARRY IT OUT.

To complement the description that is being made and in order to help a better understanding of the features of the invention, this description is attached, as an integral part thereof, a detailed description of the invention given only by way of non-limiting example, since in view of the accompanying drawings and description different modalities can occur without thereby contemplating another invention, since this must be contemplated in its broadest sense and not limiting, as for example different utilitarian analog materials, different dimensions and possibly different colors can be used. An illustrative embodiment consistent with the principles of the present invention with respect to the following figures will be described below, in which the same reference numbers are used to indicate the corresponding parts.

In the drawings:

Figure 1 represents a conventional top perspective view and on the left side of a cell phone with the arrangement and distribution of alphanumeric symbols and control commands.

Figure 2 shows a smart tablet in text entry mode in the uppercase configuration.

Figure 3 represents a perspective view of a smart tablet in text entry mode in the lowercase configuration.

Figure 4 represents a view similar to Figure 3, in the configuration of alternate functions. Figure 5 represents a cell phone in text entry mode with the adaptation for users with greater skill in the left hand in uppercase configuration.

Figure 6 represents a cell phone in text entry mode with the adaptation for users with greater dexterity in the left hand in lower case configuration.

Figure 7 represents the arrangement of alphanumeric symbols and control commands on a keyboard.

Figure 8 shows a cell phone with arrangement and distribution of alphanumeric symbols and control commands.

Referring to the figures, and especially in Figure 1, a cell phone (1) with a physical keyboard (2) is shown illustrating the buttons (3), where the alphanumeric symbols are shown for a user profile with greater right hand skill (4) and control command symbols (5).

Now, with reference to Figure 2, 3 and 4, an intelligent tablet (6) with a touch or multi-touch keyboard (7) is shown with the arrangement of the letters symbols in capital letters mode for a user profile with greater dexterity in the right hand (8) and the arrangement of the control command symbols (9) for this mode, as well as the accommodation of lowercase mode letter symbols for a user profile with greater dexterity in the right hand (10) as well same the arrangement of the numerical symbols (11) and the punctuation symbols (12) and the mathematical operation symbols (13).

In figures 5 and 6, a cell phone (14) with touch or multi-touch keyboard (7) is shown with the arrangement of the letters in capital letters for a user profile with greater skill in the left hand (15) and the arrangement of control command symbols (16) for this mode, as well as the arrangement of lowercase mode letter symbols for a user profile with greater dexterity in the left hand (17) and the arrangement of the control command symbols (16) for this mode. Figure 7 shows the arrangement of alphanumeric symbols for a user profile with greater skill in the right hand (4) and control command symbols (5) by dividing the alphabetical symbols into groups, the symbols of the vocal letters (18), being the most frequently used letters, both in the Spanish and English languages; the symbols of consonant letters with similar phonetics (19).

In figure 8, a cell phone (1) with physical keyboard (2) is shown, illustrating the buttons (3), where the alphanumeric symbols are shown for a user profile with greater dexterity in the right hand (4) and the control command symbols (5), as well as the action lines of the right thumb (20). In an embodiment of the arrangement of the alphanumeric symbols and control commands, they are distributed in such a way that the user is provided with greater comfort in the writing of texts, likewise lesions of various types, such as tendonitis or tenosynovitis, are reduced. that the symbols of the letters are within the reach of the thumbs causing less unnecessary effort.

The arrangement and distribution provided in this specification locates the alphanumeric and command symbols so that the thumbs gain better accessibility to the letters of greater use in the Spanish and English languages, which comprise the letters "A", " E "," I "and" O ". The symbols of these letters are located in the area closest to the thumb of the hand with greater skill of the user, accelerating their marking and making the writing more agile and comfortable decreasing the distance traveled by the fingers to enter the vowel symbols.

In the different electronic devices manipulated by the thumbs, which include cell phones, global positioning systems, portable music players and smart tablets, the information is entered through different keyboards that comprise the physical keyboards, which have mechanical devices and electronic to drive potential differences in the circuits of the devices, tactile, that by Capacitive sensors can coordinate coordinates by altering electric current when you touch the screen with a finger. The keyboard is divided into defined spaces, either by buttons or electronically, and one is allocated for each alphanumeric and command symbol. The arrangement and distribution can be easily adapted to the user by changing the vowel symbols to the column at the end that is closest to the range of the fingertip with the user's greatest skill. In the case of physical keyboards the adaptation is through the "Software" and the symbols represented on the buttons; for touch keyboards or. multi-touch, it is simply through the "Software" for acquisition and visualization.

By having a small number of defined spaces, it is possible to increase the dimensions of these for each symbol and help its location within the electronic devices keyboard. In the first spaces of the keyboard are the symbols of the letters "B", "C", "D", "G", "P", "T", "V", which are phonetically similar in the language Spanish, which would speed up its location on the keyboard and thus speed up the typing process. Similarly, in the English language the same concept is met for the consonants mentioned above. These symbols are consecutively, according to the order provided in the Latin or Roman alphabet having removed the vowels, which have already been accommodated in the lateral column depending on the situation of each user.

After consonants with similar phonetics, the symbols of the remaining consonants are located in the Latin or Roman alphabet, consecutively omitting the symbols of the already positioned letters, leaving the symbols of the letters in the sequence "F", "H "," J "," K "," L "," M "," N "," Ñ "," Q "," R "," S "," W "," X "," Y "and "Z".

The arrangement provides commands such as: alternate functions to enter the alternate symbols of each of the defined spaces, with this space intended for the "Alt" symbol, which is located at the opposite end of the location of the vowel symbols; uppercase / lowercase function, which modifies the information of the symbol that is entered by exchanging it with lowercase letters, and vice versa, with the space reserved for the symbol "Aa"; space bar, which enters an empty space in the writing, located in the center of the board to reach both thumbs; recoil, delete previously entered writing; carriage return, for changing lines and paragraphs, as well as entry, affirmation and access command. Similarly, quick access symbols are implemented, such as "Arroba" (@) and quick access words of affirmation and denial to respond promptly.

The punctuation and mathematical symbols are activated by the alternate function command, thus You can enter the symbols of: the numbers from 0 to 9, the period, the comma, the colon, the semicolon, the quotes, the parentheses one that opens and one that closes, the question marks one that opens and another that closes, the exclamation marks one that opens and another that closes, the oblique bar, the asterisk, the subtraction short dash and the addition cross, the "percent" symbol (%), the "et" symbol (&) and the number symbol (#). To obtain the letters with the orthographic modifications, such as the accents and the declines of the consonants, it is done by means of the alternating function and the command of exchange of capital letters to small letters and vice versa followed by the symbol to modify.

The arrangement and distribution of alphanumeric symbols and control commands for entering text to electronic devices have a logical and systematic sequence in their distribution, and a reasoned arrangement according to phonetics and language, which facilitates their adaptation and memorization.

Claims

CLAIMS Having described the invention we consider as a novelty and therefore, claim as our property contained in the following clauses:

1. - An arrangement and distribution of the alphabetic symbols to enter text to electronic devices manipulated by the thumbs, characterized by a delimitation of spaces in the keyboard area for each of the alphabetic symbols; a grouping of the spaces destined for the letters symbols most frequently used in the Spanish and English languages, which include the vowels "A", "E", "I", "O" and "U"; a grouping of the spaces of the symbols of the letters that have a similar phonetics, both in the Spanish language, and in the English language, so that the letters "B", "C", "D", "G" , "P", "T" and "V" are kept close to each other and within the range of both thumbs; and a grouping comprising the spaces destined for the symbols of the remaining consonants of the Latin or Roman alphabet.

2. - An arrangement and distribution of the alphabetical symbols, in accordance with what has been claimed in clause 1, which also includes an alphabetical order of the positions of the vowel symbols; an alphabetical order of the positions of the symbols of the consonants that have similarities in their phonetics; and an alphabetical order of the positions of the spaces corresponding to the symbols of the ^' consonants remaining in the Latin or Roman alphabet.

3. - An arrangement and distribution of the alphabetic symbols, in accordance with what has been claimed in any of clauses 1 and 2, which also includes a location of the spaces destined for the alphabetic symbols with greater frequency of use in the writing texts on one of the lateral ends of the keyboard, which is arranged within the range of the thumb of the hand with greater skill of the user.

4.- An arrangement and distribution of the numerical and punctuation symbols to enter text to electronic devices manipulated by the thumbs, characterized by a delimitation of spaces in the keyboard area for each of the alternate functions that comprise the entry of the numeric and punctuation symbols; a grouping of spaces destined for alternate functions to enter the symbols of the numbers from 1 to 9 and zero; a grouping of spaces intended for alternate functions to enter punctuation symbols, including the period, the comma, the colon, the semicolon, the quotation marks, the parentheses one that opens and one that closes, question marks one that opens and another that closes, exclamation marks one that opens and another that closes; a grouping of ^' spaces destined for alternate functions to enter the symbols of mathematical operations such as the slash, the asterisk, the subtraction hyphen and the addition cross; a space reserved for the alternate function to enter the "percent" symbol (%); a space reserved for the alternate function to enter the name symbol "et"(&); and a space reserved for the alternate function to enter the number symbol (#).

5. - An arrangement and distribution of the numerical and punctuation symbols, in accordance with what has been claimed in clause 4, which also includes an order of positioning of the spaces for symbols of the numbers from 1 to 9 so upward; a grouping of the spaces destined for the symbols of the parentheses; a grouping of the spaces destined for the question mark symbols; a grouping of spaces intended for exclamation point symbols; a grouping of the spaces destined for the symbols of mathematical operations.

6.- An arrangement and distribution of the control and quick access command symbols to enter text to electronic devices manipulated by the thumbs, characterized by a delimitation of spaces in the keyboard area for each of them; a space reserved for activating the alternate functions of the keyboard; a space of keyboard to enter a "Carriage Return" or "Enter", for beginning of paragraph, as well as access and affirmation instruction, and enter, as an alternate function, the equality symbol; a keyboard space for deletion of previously written text; a keyboard space to activate the change of alphabetic symbols in the form of uppercase letters in the form of lowercase letters and vice versa, and enter, as an alternate function, the accent mark written in the Spanish language; a space reserved for entering an empty space in the text; a union of functions in a single space of the keyboard destined for the rapid entry of the word "OK" and instruction of access and affirmation; a union of functions in a single space of the keyboard destined for the rapid entry of the word "NO" and instruction of backward and negation; and a space reserved for the rapid entry of the symbol called "Arroba" (@).

7.- An arrangement and distribution of the control and quick access commands, in accordance with what has been claimed in clause 6, which also includes a location of the space destined for the symbol that activates the alternate functions and it reserved space to activate the change of alphabetic symbols in the form of capital letters in the form of lowercase letters and vice versa, in one of the lateral ends of the keyboard, which is arranged within the range of the thumb of the hand with less dexterity of the user; a grouping of the spaces destined for the functions of text deletion and "Carriage Return"; a location of the space destined for the functions of deletion of text and "Return of Car", in one of the lateral ends of the keyboard, which is arranged within the range of the thumb of the hand with greater skill of the user.