Paper Reading #7: Performance Optimizations of Virtual Keyboards for Stroke-Based Text Entry on a Touch-Based Tabletop

References
Jochen Rick.  "Performance optimizations of virtual keyboards for stroke-based text entry on a touch-based tabletop". UIST '10 Proceedings of the 23rd annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology.  ACM New York, NY, USA ©2010.

 Author Bios
Jochen Rick received his Ph.D. from Georgia Tech. He is currently a professor at Saarland University.

Summary 

• Hypothesis - The layout of a keyboard drastically influences user performance when using stroke-based input.
  
• Method/Content - The author originally created a mathematical model of user input performance in order to compare the performance of different keyboard layouts. He created this model by means of a user study in which he collected data such as the speed of strokes in different directions and turning speed. He was able to then create a visual representation of the data. Once he had this model, he was able to find constants for each equation that represented a good scaling potential. He then applied these equations to newly created keyboard based upon this information and the standard keyboards in use (such as QWERTY and Dvorak).
• Results - The results were as expected; the optimized keyboards outperformed the standard key layouts, although the standard key layouts are effective for tap-typing. He mentioned that it was expected as these layouts were designed for typing with ten fingers, where the compact layouts were designed with one fingered strokes specifically in mind.
• Content - The author claims that there is a need for more optimized keyboard layouts based around stroke-based input. He goes into the history of keyboard layouts and the reasons behind the development of the current most common ones. He then develops a model with which to compare keyboard layouts' efficiency. After developing this model, he compares optimized keyboards to current keyboards. He then proposed new keyboard layouts that show overall improvement over current layouts.
  

 Discussion
This paper seems pretty intuitive at every point, but it seems that no one had done a study specifically on it until now. However, I'm all about efficiency, so this held my interest pretty well. I personally tap-type, so I can't relate to the stroke-based typing; however, if a good keyboard layout were implemented for stroke typing, I may give it a try. It just seemed to me originally that if I were to use a standard keyboard layout why use a different input method? I was especially interested in the hexagonal layout; that is very different from the norm and look fun to try.