Researchers Develop Two-Thumb KALQ Keyboard for Touchscreen Devices
Posted on April 17, 2013
Researchers say that normal users using a QWERTY on a touch-screen device are limited to typing at a slow rate of about 20 words per minute. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Informatics and colleagues from the University of St Andrews and Montana Tech have developed a layout for a two-thumb keyboard called KALQ. The researchers incorporated models of thumb movement into a computational optimization algorithm to come up with the device.
The position of the keyboard on the display and the assignment of letters to keyslots were developed through a series of studies conducted with the aim of maximizing typing performance. KALQ is used by gripping the device from its corners. All vowels, with the exception of the letter "y", are placed in the area for the right thumb, whereas the left thumb gets assigned more keys. The researchers say trained users achieved an entry rate of 37 wpm (5% error rate).
Antti Oulasvirta, a Senior Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics, said in a statement, "The key to optimizing a keyboard for two thumbs is to minimize long sequences with a single thumb. We also want to place frequently used letters centrally close to each other. Experienced typists move their thumbs simultaneously: While one is typing, the other is approaching its next target. We derived a predictive model of this behaviour for the optimization method."
The researchers aim to release KALQ for Android devices in May 2013. You can read more about it here.
