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A brief history of the numeric keypad

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Re: A brief history of the numeric keypad

#11

Post by EvanAnderson »

rmccue wrote: post #6

Seems reasonable to have the most frequently used numbers close to the user; I wonder if there might be something of Benfold’s law involved, where lower digits are more frequently used. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law

That's my intuition. I spent a lot of time entering stacks of checks into 10-key calculators at my family's businesses growing up in the late 80s and mid-90s. Most entry used the bottom two rows of digits (the zero, double-zero, and 1-3)-- a lot of $10, $20, and $30 checks.

Re: A brief history of the numeric keypad

#12

Post by signal11 »

throwup238 wrote: post #4
thenthenthen wrote: post #3

I noticed ATM keypad in different countries use 1-2-3 or 7-8-9, I have yet to figure out if this is based on something, it seems fairly inconsistent with language/history/colonialism

7-8-9 is the “standard” for calculator keypads but Bell Labs (supposedly) did some research and found 1-2-3 was more intuitive for users when designing the touch tone telephone keypads. When ATMs were being designed, manufacturers in the US/Canada/Europe emulated the telephone keypad while manufacturers in Asia emulated the calculator keypad.

These days you can get PIN-capable card-readers with touchscreens. Some of these models randomize the button layout, which can be interesting to those who rely on muscle memory to type their PIN. Especially given that some shops have the readers physically attached or secured, so you have to type the PIN at an odd angle.

Some examples here[1].

[1] https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/144937/why-do-some-ne...

Re: A brief history of the numeric keypad

#13

Post by AStonesThrow »

signal11 wrote: post #12
throwup238 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

7-8-9 is the “standard” for calculator keypads but Bell Labs (supposedly) did some research and found 1-2-3 was more intuitive for users when designing the touch tone telephone keypads. When ATMs were being designed, manufacturers in the US/Canada/Europe emulated the telephone keypad while manufacturers in Asia emulated the calculator keypad.

These days you can get PIN-capable card-readers with touchscreens. Some of these models randomize the button layout, which can be interesting to those who rely on muscle memory to type their PIN. Especially given that some shops have the readers physically attached or secured, so you have to type the PIN at an odd angle. Some examples here[1]. [1] https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/144937/why-do-some-ne...

As I was briefly a beneficiary of SNAP EBT ("Food Stamps") I was subjected to the process of managing that debit card. When checking out, for example from Walmart.com, a popup would appear so that the user can input his PIN.

The popup was served by the SNAP EBT provider, and it would randomize the PIN number pad. So indeed, you couldn't rely on muscle memory to input your PIN because the number pad changed every time input was requested. It seemed that the mouse was also required for this input, rather than the keyboard.

Re: A brief history of the numeric keypad

#14

Post by crazygringo »

The article doesn't make it explicit, but from the facts it presents it seems like the fundamental difference between the numeric keypad and telephone keypad is:

- With the numeric keypad, you want an extra-large 0 at the bottom that can be operated with your thumb, because zeros are so disproportionately common in real-life numbers like prices. And smaller numbers are used more than larger numbers, so you put the smaller numbers closer to the 0 so you have to reach the least, and wind up with 7-8-9 at the top.

- With dialing phone numbers, zeros aren't more frequent -- in fact they're less because phone numbers can't start with them (in the US). For local numbers, all digits 1-9 are used with approximately equal frequency. So the keypad starts with a natural numeric order of 1-2-3 at the top in reading order, and puts 0 at the bottom since it feels weird to start counting with zero (just like QWERTY keyboards start with 1, and puts 0 after 9), and because it has the special function of calling the operator.

So there seems to be an actual logic to it.

Re: A brief history of the numeric keypad

#16

Post by tmtvl »

card_zero wrote: post #2

> Picture the keypad of a telephone and calculator side by side. Can you see the subtle difference between the two without resorting to your smartphone? Don’t worry if you can’t recall the design. Pfft, I have both on the table beside me. I live in a different timeline, I suppose.

What subtle difference? On a telephone the numbers are in a circle, whereas on a calculator they're in a square. They're completely different.

Re: A brief history of the numeric keypad

#17

Post by wtallis »

tekla wrote: post #9

> Picture the keypad of a telephone and calculator side by side. Can you see the subtle difference between the two without resorting to your smartphone? I sometimes wonder if people have ever used Excel to calculate anything ever

It's possible that at this point, a majority of the people who have ever used Excel to calculate anything have done so on a laptop that doesn't even have a numeric keypad. Certainly, that fraction of the cumulative historical Excel user base has been growing.

Re: A brief history of the numeric keypad

#18

Post by Cordiali »

abanana wrote: post #7

A line early on in the article caught my eye: > they serve the same functional goal — input numbers Well, yes and no. Same as how, when it comes to data types, it often has to be pointed out to inexperienced developers that a phone "number" isn't a number in the mathematical sense - you can't add or multiply 2 of them together to get anything meaningful. It's an identifying string, that happens to use only digit char…

Tangentially related, when websites mess up the digit grouping in phone number input fields, I've noticed it becomes quite hard to read. Must be a headache to get it right though, because it's a convention that changes from country to country, but it's easily worse than not grouping the digits.

Re: A brief history of the numeric keypad

#19

Post by toast0 »

Cordiali wrote: post #18
abanana wrote: post #7

A line early on in the article caught my eye: > they serve the same functional goal — input numbers Well, yes and no. Same as how, when it comes to data types, it often has to be pointed out to inexperienced developers that a phone "number" isn't a number in the mathematical sense - you can't add or multiply 2 of them together to get anything meaningful. It's an identifying string, that happens to use only digit char…

Tangentially related, when websites mess up the digit grouping in phone number input fields, I've noticed it becomes quite hard to read. Must be a headache to get it right though, because it's a convention that changes from country to country, but it's easily worse than not grouping the digits.

Not that it's always right, but Google's libphonenumber has formatting rules for phone numbers that work pretty well. But you need to know the right country, which isn't always easy; people may enter a local number and the site context isn't always enough to know what country is implied.
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