Carnegie Mellon Offers Wee QWERTY Texting Tech For Impossibly Tiny Devices

coondoggie writes "If smartwatches and other ultra-small devices are to become the text generators of the future, their diminutive keyboards are going to have to be way more useful for, um, big fingered typists. Carnegie Mellon researchers may have the answer to that problem. Called ZoomBoard, the text entry technique is based on the iconic QWERTY keyboard layout." The zoom board paper (PDF) has details. Entering a letter becomes a multi-step process; first you mash the general area of the keyboard containing the letter you want, and eventually it becomes large enough to hit. Test subjects managed to hit 9.3wpm after practice, versus 4.5 wpm for people trying to peck on a teeny-tiny virtual keyboard. They were inspired at least in part by the venerable Dasher input method.

Comments

Not as good as Morse

[Geoffrey.landis]

People should just learn Morse code, only one button. It's the original text message tech.
And good Morse code operators go vastly faster than a mere 9.3 world per minute.

Re:Not as good as Morse

[hairyfeet]

You joke (or half joke, can never tell on the net) but THIS, this right here, is why the PC and laptop will NEVER die, trying to input text on one of these little devices is an exercise in frustration and irritation. Hell I'm a two fingered typist (got some fingers broke in a bike wreck and while they play bass decently the curve that the joints are set in don't respond well to typing) and I can positively fly low on a regular keyboard compared to a 100 WPM touch typist on one of those little mini-key jobs, which needless to say is frustrating as hell for them. Dragging along a BT keyboard of course becomes more bulky and a bigger PITA than just carrying a little laptop so we are right back where we started.

I've seen everything from virtual keyboards to the "spin the thing until it lands on the right letter" and frankly nothing has even come close to a full size keyboard and until they do i just don't see anybody giving up their desktops and laptops, no matter how much the OEMs (and MSFT) want to force us onto "ecosystems" where they control everything and get a cut of every sale, it might be good for them but the interface just sucks.

Just write on the screen

[doconnor]

The old Palm watch came with a tiny stylus that let you write on the touch screen using their Graffiti system. A normal palm had a separate part of the screen for writing. The watch has some why of switch the screen from tapping mode to writing mode.