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Finding an Optimal Keyboard Layout for Swype

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Re: Finding an Optimal Keyboard Layout for Swype

#31

Post by anigbrowl »

Thiz wrote: post #29
Thiz wrote: post #28

How about putting all the vowels in a middle row and the consonants in natural order? BCDFG HJKLM AEIOU NPQRS TVWXYZ

Or this three liner? B C D F G H J K L M ^ # A E I O U . , N P Q R S T V W X Y Z

These proposals at least have the virtue of being easily understanadable. Getting familiar enough with either of them to use efficiently would take time, but at least you'd know where to look for the letters. That's the major downside to QWERTY (it's very arbitrary for most people) and the reason so few people are willing to switch to some other apparently-equally-arbitrary layout.

I can see how the approach here might not be that optimal in technical terms but I think there's huge value in its conceptual simplicity. I find it easy to imagine switching to it and getting up to decent speeds in a reasonably short timeframe, which is more than I can say for other layouts I've looked at over the years. Well done, both of you.

Re: Finding an Optimal Keyboard Layout for Swype

#32

Post by edent »

Fascinating - although I wonder if you're missing a trick by not looking at misspellings?

I often don't know how to correctly spell a word. On T9 it can be difficult to get a prediction if you don't know how many Cs & Ss there are in "necessary".

I find that SwiftKey (through which this comment is typed) is very good at correcting my showing as I swipe.

Re: Finding an Optimal Keyboard Layout for Swype

#33

Post by lucb1e »

ankurdave wrote: post #3
Zikes wrote: post #2

Alternate keyboards have fascinated me ever since I first got a smartphone capable of using them. My most memorable experimental trials were 8pen[1] and one where the user would "slalom" from key to key as columns of letters would move from the right side of the screen to the left, expanding the target area in a fisheye type zoom as you neared your desired letter. Unfortunately the name of the second keyboard evades…

The zooming keyboard sounds like Dasher: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dasher_(software)

That is not too far from what I tried a while back:

http://lucb1e.com/rp/js/testkb.htm

It's a bit buggy and it could be hugely optimized, e.g. by placing the options to the right in the center instead of aligning them on top, and you could probably do something like make the keys a certain shape so you are less likely to accidentally select another letter as you move to the right, but the basic idea is there.

Re: Finding an Optimal Keyboard Layout for Swype

#34

Post by avani »

kybernetikos wrote: post #4

The first swype-like input system I used was the IBM Shark. https://gigaom.com/2004/11/03/text_entry_epip/ That had hexagonal keys and used the ATOMIK layout. It also focussed much more on shape, with the intention being that once you were expert, you could write words without looking at the keyboard, as the layout was just for guidance. You didn't actually have to start on the letter as long as the shape was right.

I would pay a lot to be able to use ATOMIK as primary input again. Everything since has been strictly worse for me.

Re: Finding an Optimal Keyboard Layout for Swype

#35

Post by Nexxxeh »

blister wrote: post #7

This was a fascinating article. The first thing that jumped out at me when I reached the end was "there's no way this would ever work." I am a Swype user and love the product, but I'm reasonably fast at typing on it because I know the QWERTY layout like the back of my hand. Switching to a new layout would bring me back to a crawl. I'd probably be better off typing on a 9-digit pre-smartphone keypad at that point. Coo…

I'm a SwiftKey user but I rarely use the integrated Swype because the prediction engine is ridiculous. It usually predicts what I'm going to say in two letters per word. It can be logged into your Twitter, Facebook and Email (iirc) to learn your sentence patterns. It feels slightly creepy but it's unnerving in its accuracy. Maybe I just say the same stuff a lot?

Re: Finding an Optimal Keyboard Layout for Swype

#36

Post by mwhelm »

Interesting posting date.

My hunch, upon starting to read this article & looking at the patterns, is that as soon as you arrive at an optimized keyboard layout, you have created a new kind of cursive & you can dispense with the keyboard. You might need one more optimization step to do it, but you can unfold the strokes patterns & there you have a kind of shorthand.

Re: Finding an Optimal Keyboard Layout for Swype

#38

Post by Cloudy »

jshholland wrote: post #10
Zikes wrote: post #2

Alternate keyboards have fascinated me ever since I first got a smartphone capable of using them. My most memorable experimental trials were 8pen[1] and one where the user would "slalom" from key to key as columns of letters would move from the right side of the screen to the left, expanding the target area in a fisheye type zoom as you neared your desired letter. Unfortunately the name of the second keyboard evades…

I also used that keyboard for a short while. Currently, I use 5 Tiles [0]. I can get to 20-30 wpm with it, which is acceptable, though not as fast as a regular keyboard. The killer feature is that it takes up less than 10% of the screen, rather than the ~40% a conventional one would. Gripes: it's not great for symbol input (you have to remember all sorts of crazy zigzaggy patterns, or pull up a list which defeats the…

KiiKeyboard had an option to scale down the size of the keyboard, but has since been removed from the play store due to licensing issues related to "emoji plugin" packs downloaded separately

Re: Finding an Optimal Keyboard Layout for Swype

#39

Post by Analog24 »

anonymous1717 wrote: post #37

Of course, the inventors of Swype originally did this as well: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Shumin_Zhai/publication/... They recently won a "lasting impact" award for this paper.

That is an interesting article but it's not the same thing. The ATOMIK keyboard, presented in the paper you reference, was designed to minimize the movement necessary to spell words in English. We optimized the layout to minimize the number of swipe patterns that create ambiguous input, i.e. potential swipe errors.

Also, Cliff Kushler and Randall Marsden are the inventors of Swype, not the authors of the paper you cited.

Re: Finding an Optimal Keyboard Layout for Swype

#40

Post by anonymous1717 »

Analog24 wrote: post #39
anonymous1717 wrote: post #37

Of course, the inventors of Swype originally did this as well: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Shumin_Zhai/publication/... They recently won a "lasting impact" award for this paper.

That is an interesting article but it's not the same thing. The ATOMIK keyboard, presented in the paper you reference, was designed to minimize the movement necessary to spell words in English. We optimized the layout to minimize the number of swipe patterns that create ambiguous input, i.e. potential swipe errors. Also, Cliff Kushler and Randall Marsden are the inventors of Swype, not the authors of the paper you ci…

Fair enough - the original inventors of gesture typing on keyboards, of which swipe is a later and derivative example.
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