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The Challenge of Getting a Usable QWERTY Keyboard Onto a Dime-sized Screen
An anonymous reader writes: Researchers from Spain and Germany are building on Carnegie Mellon's work to attempt to create workable text-input interfaces for wearables, smartwatches and a new breed of IoT devices too small to accomodate even the truncated soft keyboards familiar to phone users. In certain cases, the screen area in which the keyboard must be made usable is no bigger than a dime. Of all the commercial input systems I've used, Graffiti seems like it might be the most suited to such tiny surfaces.
My fingertip is the size of a dime. It can't be done. Stop trying to do it, it's not going to happen.
I think Morse needs to come back for data entry. Only one button needed. Ya just gotta take the time to learn it. It also allows text messages to be "felt" while in vibrate mode.
Instead of adhering to the qwerty paradigm that has its roots in mechanical typewriters, why no used a different layout? Or even get away from the whole keyboard mindset?
Think outside of the box, dudes!
...would dictate we look to other methods of input rather than re-engineering the wheel to fit inside a thimble.
Care to tell me why my IoT device wouldn't simply report into a web server, where another device would serve as the input mechanism?
Frankly I find it laughable that we assume any IoT device would not be reporting all of it's data to a central server. It's kind of the whole point of IoT, for vendors to sell you back your own data and tie it to online alerting systems that can easily be interfaced through a browser or phone app.
What more do you need?
nosig today
I really hope gesture mosaic comes back. I could keep up with touch typists using that input method.
http://www.pitecan.com/presentations/PenInput/gesturemosaic.html
You would have to be crazy to be sane in this world. -Nero
Graffiti is a good idea, and I think I could knock the rust off those skills in a short time, but aren't we at the point now where voice recognition is practical?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Why aim so low? Qwerty is deprecated, Dvorak tattoos on eyelids and neural implants for everyone!!
8pen "spiral gestures" always seemed to be a fair approach which involved the least amount of finger re-lifting. Then it kinda just disappeared... http://www.wired.com/2010/11/h... http://www.8pen.com/
Typing is so 20th century. Though voice-commands may be an interim method, the ultimate solution will involve implanting the thing into the user's body. Not necessarily the brain, but somewhere, where a nerve can affect it — and be affected by it.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Should use Dvorak instead. I hear it better at everything!
Take out your smartphone and type it there. If you're trying to do something that takes more than a couple clicks on a smartwatch, you're doing it wrong.
to snooze the alarm.
http://minuum.com/future-of-wearable-typing/
xstroke on the old hp ipaq's running linux was a great input experience using gesture recognition.
This is not unlike the makers of the first horseless carriages who built them with saddles instead of instead of seats.
New Technology means a new paradigm for data input, period.
What we need is software that can translate dumbass conversational into business formal, not buttons so small that people with calculator watches from the 1980s are laughing at you.
Comprende, meine Freunde?
a scrolling keyboard. Have one big button for the active key and 4 scroll arrows to move around the keyboard
(/sarc just in case)
I saw one mock-up where a phone-type screen was projected onto the wrist of the wearer. That might be a bit much, but perhaps something like this with a basic keyboard - projected onto the wrist/arm - might be doable.
Not sure how well it will work for us guys with hairy arms though.
I used 8pen for a while. I found it to be about a wash against Swype for ease and speed, but it would seem to be very well suited to smart watches.
It's called the 8pen.
Of all the commercial input systems I've used, Graffiti seems like it might be the most suited to such tiny surfaces.
I do believe Microsoft Research is attempting to do something very Graffiti-like with Android wear. I don't know how useful it is.
Only luddites who use old software like Windows 7 or evil command line Linux use keyboards.
Modern app appers use app boards!
Apps!
Holograms!
They're taking a keyboard paradigm, which is inherently designed to be operated with two hands and they're trying to put it in a device that's attached to the wrist above one of your hands in a way that makes it impossible for you to use one of your two hands to operate it..
Does anyone else besides me see the problem here?
I suppose the price point just isn't there but...
I've through for a long time we only need two computing devices, one high performance but too big to be portable, one as fast as possible while still pocket size and long battery life. Then have a bunch of wireless interface devices. Your smartphone, tablet, keyboard or anything that is vaguely portable can just talk with your pocket computer. Then when you get home they can talk to your faster, non portable device to increase performance.
Might I suggest Morse code. Fast people with Morse can exceed the fastest texters. Seems extremely plausible.
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
I predict that non-contact hand motion detection will be made practical soon. 3D cameras will "read" hand gestures so that you are essentially typing in the air. Everyone will look like magicians, waving gestures at their watch or gizmo.
Table-ized A.I.
It's called voice to text. No thumbs required.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
http://citeseer.uark.edu:8080/...
They already have options that they worked on back in 1993.
putting QWERTY on the screen is stupid, you have to use a different input method, the clock face is the one that makes a lot of sense.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
it was just a grab http://gizmodo.com/5943266/thi... while they call it a waste of time it sure meets the needs of small devices
At this moment I would be satisfied with a usable QWERTY keyboard sized QWERTY keyboard. As far as I know the last serious attempt was the Space Cadet keyboard in the 1970s.
Simply wear the smart watch on one wrist and a Bluetooth Blueberry keyboard watch on the other. After all, why should one of your wrists go naked....
Voice, patterns, signs... anything but a keyboard. The input area is just too small.
Even if someone do manage to invent something clever, it's not going to be anywhere near the usability of a full-sized keyboard. There's a reason Apple won't make smaller laptops: they know a usable keyboard needs to be a minimum size.
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I use the MessagEase keyboard on a few devices, and I can't imagine a better input system for small screens. It is unconventional, and it takes a bit of learning. Small enough to fit on a dime? Probably not. But for a watch, absolutely.
http://www.exideas.com/ME/inde...
Does a dime-sized wearable require that much interaction? It seems like the display would be so small that it wouldn't have very many use cases. If you want a lot of interaction, you probably also want a bigger screen. Why not something forearm-sized?
along with 1-character-at-a-time handwriting input, until futuristic 3d holographic keyboards are mainstream.
How small can we make an accurate gaze detector? When you need to type the watch, it would display the tiny keyboard while looking into your dominant eye and by way of feedback displays a little spot where it sees your point of regard as being. To "commit" a virtual keystroke you would tap a side button on the device. It may sound clumsy but I think a trained user could achieve better speed of entry this way than any other physical way of hitting eensy keys.
This would be especially powerful if voice were the main input to the device. You would use gaze typing in situations where talking to your watch is not practical.
Graffiti would work great and is fairly intuitive, but it sucks on capacitive screens; they just don't have the accuracy of a resistive screen and a blunt but pointy object.
If they can put one of those radio grids that support RF styluses like the Note then it might work, but that will increase manufacturing costs, complexity and murder the already limited battery.
Morse or some sort of slide-gesture-based input system like Fitali Stamp might be worth a look.
Alternatively, there was a VERY cool input system that I forget the name of; It basically had a spread of letters scrolling to the left and you drag your finger up and down to manoeuvre the character you want to the middle. It had a predictive and learning style of letter generation so more likely characters were closer to the middle, so e.g. you might be able to input c a t with very little movement, but you could still input something like lveljfddcjffi quite easily with some fairly dynamic finger movements.
Palm was successfully sued by Xerox claiming it violated their patent. I agree with the assessment that a gesture input is probably the only practical "on-screen" solution. But I also suspect it's a mine field for anyone attempting to adopt such a thing.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
I tried this on a Fossil PalmOS watch back a decade or so. Grafitti _does_ work on a 1" screen, but I would hate to enter anything of significance. But a quick entry of a phone# or calendar event ... maybe.
[just so no one thinks Apple invented the usable smartphone or smart watch ... Palm beat 'em by a decade. And still seems like a btter user interface in some ways :-]
Does a deaf person signing to another deaf person look "like and idiot or an insane person"?
In a couple of generations, smartwatches will come with 7" displays anyway.
..it is easier, far easier, to thread an IBM Model M through the orifice of a Badger,
than it is to find Any Useful Purpose Whatsoever for That Fucking Watch.
Hear ye Brothers, for I speak the Truth.
I saw an interesting concept that I thought was a good idea -- though I can no longer find it anywhere online. The down side is that it takes two fingers/thumbs/hands/feet to use though, but is still a good idea never-the-less.
It's essentially two joysticks that have (at minimum) 8 positions each that you can move them into, and it snaps back to the center when released (N/NE/E/SE/S/SW/W/NW -- or let's call them 0-7). The interesting thing here is that you can do this represented virtually with a touch screen as well.
Anyway, let's say the left joystick is in position 0, and then the right knob is 0 -- this could be "A" (L0+R0), the L0+R1 could be "B", etc. This is obviously a good candidate for optimizations as well.
Anyone know what I'm talking about and have a link to share?
Somebody needs to come up with a standardized chording keyboard that can be fitted into both smartphones and watch straps, operated by one hand held in a grasping postion.