Triangular Buttons Make On-Screen Keyboards More Usable

As someone targeted for perpetual failure by the designers of most keyboards, I'm happy to read The Register's report that "A British inventor has submitted a patent application for a wacky touchscreen keyboard design which, he claims, could spell the end for accidental key presses."

Comments

make users adapt to hardware

[pz]

From the article:

Baker told Register Hardware today that each triangular key has significantly more dead space around it than youâ(TM)d find on a standard Qwerty layout.

Assuming the keys have the same pitch, then that means the active triangular zones are SMALLER than normal keys occupying the same overall keyboard area, making it even HARDER to type accurately, or, in other words, this trains the user to be more careful with their finger placements. It isn't magic (like standard rollover logic in keyboards), it's behavioral modification.

Funny, I was always taught that programs and computers should be designed to make things easier for the user, not harder.

Re:make users adapt to hardware

[SQLGuru]

Back in the early 90's (92, I believe), I was co-op'ing for IBM and was lucky enough to get to go to COMDEX provided I man a booth for a while. The product I was demo'ing was voice independant voice recognition (it was all the rage at the time). There was no training required, random guy from the street could walk up and interact with the computer by voice, regardless of dialect or accent. I got pretty good with it, but I noticed that some people did have to repeat themselves (but not more than twice) to get it to work -- again, early times in terms of speech recognition. But the reason I was good at it was that repeated practice actually trained ME to speak the way it wanted instead of it being able to adjust to how I spoke. Speech recognition has become more prevelant since then (BING 411 anyone? http://www.discoverbing.com/mobile/411/ ), and I'm sure you've made adjustments to how you speak to computers just to get past the voice prompts. You speak slower with more distinct pauses between words.

Behavior modification is an effective way to improve computer input.

I'll consider...

[sleekware]

I'll wait to upgrade to a touch screen when my Model M ceases to function. Seeing as that will be never, I suppose touch screens will be an upgrade that just won't be happening for me.

Stupid

[Roadmaster]

Actually it misses the point, since "significanty more dead space between keys" is only a feasible solution if you have a physically larger screen. He's effectively making the keys smaller, thus harder to hit, and the "dead space" is just space where nothing happens = confused users.

Next thing we know, someone will be inventing a "capacitive stylus" touting "higher precision" while using your iPhone. Well yes, but that's SO not the point of a capacitive, finger-friendly touchscreen.

Re:Stupid

[Idiomatick]

It forces users to have better aim BUT if you do have shitty aim then you don't get a 'false positive?...' It won't type anything. Think of it as graceful failure.

Re:Stupid

[geekoid]

No one presses a single point, the press an area. By putting the spaces there you are more likely to get the correct key as opposed to fat finger the next key by imstake becasue it got a larger area pressed.

It's pretty clever.

Re:Stupid

[HTH NE1]

No, it prevents users from hitting two keys at once, preventing the need for the software to decide which one the user hit (the one hit first in time or the one hit most by area).

And then maybe it will remove the predictive typing that prevents users from typing "kewl" by presuming the fourth letter should be a "p".

If it was made up of triangles in alternating directions (like a Pegasus Galaxy DHD) then you'd have no benefit for Fat Finger Syndrome.

Re:The Best Thing To Do

[geekoid]

As someone who sues it, I would say do NOT remove the caps lock. kthxby.
In fact, serious data entry users use it regularly.

For the iPhone, doesn't make sense

[Chris Pimlott]

For a physical keyboard, this seems reasonable - if you eliminate edges where the keys touch, each other, then you're less likely to accidentally press two keys at once. But for a virtual keyboard like on the iPod, it doesn't matter if you "touch" two keys at once with your finger - the software can determine which one you were actually closer to, and only register that.

While there are certainly drawbacks to a touchscreen, such as lack of tactile feedback, this is one area where they have an advantage - a larger percentage of usuable surface area, as touches that would be a multiple button mash on physical keyboards can be unambiguously mapped to a single key in software.

?? On touchscreens..

[dbcad7]

Is the area designated as a button always the same size as the graphic of the button ? .. why couldn't you do the same thing showing square buttons but sensing triangular or smaller circular areas ? .. You could also use color in the button graphic to target the hotspot, fading to the buttton edges.

Re:The Best Thing To Do

[spydabyte]

Baker told Register Hardware today that each triangular key has significantly more dead space around it than youâ(TM)d find on a standard Qwerty layout. Consequently, users are more likely to press the correct key each time they tap.

Significantly more is right. It's about the same size as the buttons themselves, doubling screen real-estate.

From my minimalistic POV, that's horrid.

Sceptical

[dethndrek]

As a programmer, any time I hear hype like this ". . .could spell the end for accidental key presses." I laugh a little.

We will NEVER spell the end for accidental use of technology by using more technology.

It kind of falls into the old maxim "Try to make anything idiot proof, and the world with generate bigger idiots".

Re:Apple is, or should be, FAR ahead of this...

[jkoke]

Settings > General > Keyboard > Auto-Correction

Been there since v. 2.2

Schizoid Moderation

[sycodon]

Some might find this interesting. This is the moderation email I got for the orginal comment. Not a political comment, not calling anyone names. Sure as hell not dissing Linux or Macs or Windows or Obama.

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Further moderations that I have not been notified about have reduced the score to 0.

Just as sure as I say I don't really care someone will say I obviously do. But WTF ever.

What is reallying interesting is that some people appear to have some serious emotional investment in the caps lock key.