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International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction

HCII 2019: HCI International 2019 – Late Breaking Posters pp 85–92Cite as

How to Optimize the Input Efficiency of Keyboard Buttons in Large Smartphone? A Comparison of Curved Keyboard and Keyboard Area Size

Part of the Communications in Computer and Information Science book series (CCIS,volume 1088)

Abstract

Smartphone has been constantly optimizing the user experience of viewing content by increasing screen size. However, larger screen brings about unsatisfactory input issue, especially for one-handed users. Curved QWERTY keyboard and reduced soft keyboard area are proposed to solve the input inefficiency issue of application design in the large smartphones. Following the design of existing curved keyboards, we designed a keyboard application, which could collect all the usage data, to test whether the curved keyboard or reduced-area keyboard could indeed solve the input inefficiency issue. By using within-subject design. we compared 2 screen sizes (5.0 in. vs. 6.5 in.), 2 area sizes (small-area: letter key area is 4.9 mm × 7 mm vs. large-area: letter key area is 6.3 mm × 9 mm), and 2 keyboard layouts (curved QWERTY vs. traditional QWERTY). The results show that the large-area keyboard is significantly better in terms of pairs per minute and reaction time between two keys, at the same time, the curved keyboard performs worse than the traditional keyboard. It indicates that the two design elements are not a common practice.

Keywords

  • Curved QWERTY keyboard
  • Reduced input area
  • Input efficiency
  • Reachability

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tsinghua University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

    Yincheng Wang, Hailin Ai, Qiongdan Liang & Jibo He

  2. Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, People’s Republic of China

    Wenjie Chang

Authors
  1. Yincheng Wang
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  2. Hailin Ai
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  3. Qiongdan Liang
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  4. Wenjie Chang
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  5. Jibo He
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jibo He .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Crete and Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH), Heraklion, Crete, Greece

    Prof. Constantine Stephanidis

  2. Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH), Heraklion, Crete, Greece

    Dr. Margherita Antona

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Wang, Y., Ai, H., Liang, Q., Chang, W., He, J. (2019). How to Optimize the Input Efficiency of Keyboard Buttons in Large Smartphone? A Comparison of Curved Keyboard and Keyboard Area Size. In: Stephanidis, C., Antona, M. (eds) HCI International 2019 – Late Breaking Posters. HCII 2019. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1088. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30712-7_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30712-7_11

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