Authors:
Yuya Nakamura
1
and
Hiroshi Hosobe
2
Affiliations:
1
Graduate School of Computer and Information Sciences, Hosei University, Tokyo, Japan
;
2
Faculty of Computer and Information Sciences, Hosei University, Tokyo, Japan
Keyword(s):
Text Entry, Touch Screen, Touch Typing.
Abstract:
Tablets, as well as smartphones and personal computers, are popular as Internet clients. Tablet users often use QWERTY software keyboards to enter text. Such a software keyboard usually uses large display space, and requires its user to largely move their fingers. This paper proposes a Japanese bimanual flick keyboard for tablets that improves display space efficiency by using 10 character keys. The paper presents an implementation of the keyboard for an Android tablet, and describes an experiment on its performance compared with a QWERTY software keyboard. Since the results of a preliminary experiment indicated a problem with the key layout, the main experiment further introduced an L-shaped layout and a Γ-shaped layout for comparison. The main experiment examined the keyboard’s input speed, accuracy, and subjective evaluation, and the results showed trade-offs among these layouts.