ABSTRACT
The proliferation of touchscreen devices has made soft keyboards a routine part of life. However, ultra-small computing platforms like the Sony SmartWatch and Apple iPod Nano lack a means of text entry. This limits their potential, despite the fact they are quite capable computers. In this work, we present a soft keyboard interaction technique called ZoomBoard that enables text entry on ultra-small devices. Our approach uses iterative zooming to enlarge otherwise impossibly tiny keys to comfortable size. We based our design on a QWERTY layout, so that it is immediately familiar to users and leverages existing skill. As the ultimate test, we ran a text entry experiment on a keyboard measuring just 16 x 6mm - smaller than a US penny. After eight practice trials, users achieved an average of 9.3 words per minute, with accuracy comparable to a full-sized physical keyboard. This compares favorably to existing mobile text input methods.
Supplemental Material
- Albinsson, P. and Zhai, S. High precision touchscreen interaction. In Proc. CHI '03. 105--112. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Bates, R. and Istance, H. Zooming interfaces!: enhancing the performance of eye controlled pointing devices. In Proc. ASSETS '02. 119--126. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Bederson, B. B. and Hollan, J.D., Pad++: A zooming graphical interface for exploring alternate interface physics. In Proc. UIST '94. 17--26. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Bi, X., Smith, B. A., and Zhai, S. Quasi-qwerty soft keyboard optimization. In Proc. CHI '10. 283--286. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Castellucci, S. and MacKenzie, S. Graffiti vs. unistrokes: an empirical comparison. In Proc. CHI '08. 305--308. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Cockburn, A., Karlson, A., and Bederson, B. B. A review of overview+detail, zooming, and focus+context interfaces. ACM Comput. Surv. 41,1, (January 2009). Google ScholarDigital Library
- Felzer, T. and Nordmann, R., Alternative text entry using different input methods. In Proc. ASSETS 2006. 10--17. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Gajos, K. Z., Wobbrock, J. O. and Weld, D. S. Automatically generating user interfaces adapted to users' motor and vision capabilities. In Proc. UIST '07. 231--240. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Goldberg, D. and Richardson, C. Touch-typing with a stylus. In Proc. CHI '93. 80--87. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Guiard, Y., M. Beaudouin-Lafon, and D. Mottet. Navigation as multiscale pointing: Extending fitts' model to very high precision tasks. In Proc. CHI 1999. 450--457. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Harrison, C. and Dey, A. K. Lean and zoom: proximity-aware user interface and content magnification. Proc. CHI '08. 507--510. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Hwang S. and Lee, G. Qwerty-like 3x4 keypad layouts for mobile phone. In CHI EA '05. 1479--1482. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Ingmarsson, M., Dinka, D., and Zhai, S. TNT: a numeric keypad based text input method. In Proc. CHI '04. 639--646. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Kim, S., Sohn, M., Pak, J., and Lee, W. One-key keyboard: a very small QWERTY keyboard supporting text entry for wearable computing. In Proc. OZCHI '06. 305--308. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Li, F., Guy, R. T., Yatani, K., and Truong, K. N. The 1line keyboard: a QWERTY layout in a single line. In Proc. UIST '11. 461--470. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Lyons, K., Starner, T., Plaisted, D., Fusia, J., Lyons, A., Drew, A., and Looney, E. W. Twiddler typing: one-handed chording text entry for mobile phones. In Proc. CHI '04. 671--678. Google ScholarDigital Library
- MacKenzie, I. S., Soukoreff, R. W., and Helga, J. 1 thumb, 4 buttons, 20 words per minute: design and evaluation of H4-writer. In Proc. UIST '11. 471--480. Google ScholarDigital Library
- MacKenzie, I. S. and Soukoreff, R. W. Phrase sets for evaluating text entry techniques. In Proc. CHI EA '03. 754--755. Google ScholarDigital Library
- MacKenzie, I. S., and Zhang, S. X. The design and evaluation of a high-performance soft keyboard. In Proc. CHI '99. 25--31. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Miner, C. S., Chan, D. M. and Campbell, C. Digital jewelry: wearable technology for everyday life. In CHI EA '01. 45--46. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Ni, T. and Baudisch, P. Disappearing mobile devices. In Proc. UIST '09. 101--110. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Olwal, A., Feiner, S., and Heyman, S. Rubbing and tapping for precise and rapid selection on touch-screen displays. In Proc. CHI '08. 295--304. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Robertson, G. G., Card, S. K., Mackinlay, J. D. Information Visualization Using 3D Interactive Animation. CACM, 36(4), 1993. 56--71. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Ward, D. J., Blackwell, A. F., and MacKay, D. J. C. Dasher - a data entry interface using continuous gestures and language models. In Proc. UIST '00. 129--137. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Weiser, M. The computer for the 21st century. SIGMOBILE Mob. Comput. Commun. Rev. 3, 3 (July 1999), 3--11. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Wigdor, D. and Balakrishnan, R. TiltText: using tilt for text input to mobile phones. In Proc. UIST '03. 81--90. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Wobbrock, J. O., Myers, B. A., and Kembel, J. A. EdgeWrite: a stylus-based text entry method designed for high accuracy and stability of motion. In Proc. UIST '03. 61--70. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Wobbrock, J. O., Myers, B. A., and Rothrock, B. Few-key text entry revisited: mnemonic gestures on four keys. In Proc. CHI '06. 489--492. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Zhai, S., Hunter, M. and Smith, B. A. Performance optimization of virtual keyboards. Hum.-Comput. Interact. 17, 2,3 (2002). 89--129.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Zhai, S., Hunter, M., and Smith, B. A. The metropolis keyboard - an exploration of quantitative techniques for virtual keyboard design. In Proc. UIST '00. 119--128. Google ScholarDigital Library
Index Terms
- ZoomBoard: a diminutive qwerty soft keyboard using iterative zooming for ultra-small devices
Recommendations
Flickey: Flick-Based QWERTY Software Keyboard for Ultra-small Touch Screen Devices
Human-Computer Interaction. Interaction TechnologiesAbstractUltra-small touch screen devices (e.g., smartwatches) are required to be small and lightweight so that they can be worn on the body with no frustration. For this reason, users often have difficulties in selecting the correct keys, and thus ...
EmojiZoom: emoji entry via large overview maps 😄🔍
MobileHCI '16: Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and ServicesCurrent soft keyboards for emoji entry all present emoji in the same way: in long lists, spread over several categories. While categories limit the number of emoji in each individual list, the overall number is still so large, that emoji entry is a ...
Exploring callout design in selection task for ultra-small touch screen devices
OzCHI '16: Proceedings of the 28th Australian Conference on Computer-Human InteractionUltra-small touch screen devices tend to suffer from occlusion or the fat finger problem owing to their limited input area. A callout could solve these problems by displaying a copy of the occluded area in a non-occluded area. However, callout designs ...
Comments