Five Finger Keyboards

Tijaska writes "Mobile devices are becoming more capable all the time, but their small screens and keyboards limit their usefulness. This article shows ways in which five buttons located on the edges of a mobile could be used in combinations to generate 325 or many more different characters, making a full-sized keyboard unnecessary. If that sounds like a tall story, remember the case of the retired 93 year old telegraph operator who used a Morse key to send a text message faster than a teenager could send it via mobile phone (see here)."

Prototype?

[niceone]

This seems like a nice thought experiment. but really without trying it you can't tell anything. Why not do a mock up using 5 keys of a regular keyboard? Personally I'd have done the prototype and tried it before blogging about it!

IM-speak compression

[j00r0m4nc3r]

This is whole point of people texting "u" instead of "you". Instant 3:1 compression ratio. I could certainly hit the "u" button faster than any 93-year old morse coder could hit "..-" The only problem with texting is it's not streaming, you have to hit "send", whereas morse code streams.

Not news.

[tygerstripes]

This is just a blog, ffs. The idea of chorded typing - or even just improving the efficiency of text-entry - has been bandied around for so long that it makes this particular blogger sound like a 13-yr-old nerd who's just had his first Big Idea.

I'm not saying he's wrong. Personally, I'd love to see this being implemented. QWERTY input isn't likely to be shunted aside until text-input keyboards become obsolete - it's well-established and it works well enough, and would require a hell of a lot of people to unlearn and relearn typing for a marginal increase in efficiency - but for other specialised applications there are always better ways. Just look at the stenotype [wikipedia.org] used in courts, or the way SMS texting made use of the very limited resources that phones had back in the day. Very specific developments for very specific purposes.

My point is, this sort of idea is not new, and it's being discussed and ummed-and-aahed over in development labs even as we speak. Until someone with real inside knowledge writes about it, however, I'm really not interested in someone's inter-blag brain-fart.

I have done absolutely no searches to find out if any of the ideas described in this article have been patented or not.

Yeah, no kidding.

Re:IM-speak compression

[grommit]

Who says morse coders don't use text compression of their own?

Re:IM-speak compression

[JrOldPhart]

Don't bet on that.

Some one used to even a straight key can tap out a 'u' in Morse much quicker than two clicks of, where was that, Oh yea, the '8' button. Then there are electronic keyers, only two touches.

Re:One finger keyboard

[Ngarrang]

I grow my right hand thumbnail long, file it down so I have a bit of an edge leaning left

Dude. Seek help.

No! This is brilliant! It is adaptation in action. The individual experienced the problem, analyzed solutions and adapted his body to use his computer more efficiently. I think the poster should create "The Thumb Typer" for people to wear that don't want to grow their finger nail.

Pardon me, but do you have 6 fingers?

[fortiguy]

But what about handicapped people? What if someone has 4 or even 3 fingers? How would they make up for this lack of digits?

Also, this method would seem to encourage people to use 6 fingers if they have them. That would be an interesting progression for us, as a race eh? Due to the usefulness, we evolved/grafted/added a mechanical 6th finger!

Just watch out for revenge bent young Spaniards tell you their name...

Re:AKA chording keyboard

[CastrTroy]

The reason that Dvorak hasn't caught on is because out of all the computer users, there's only X% who are even interested in typing speed. Then out of them, there's only Y% who have heard of Dvorak. Then out of them, there's only Z% who feel it's worth the effort to learn another layout just to add 10% to their typing speed. So, X% * Y% * Z% is a very small number. Add to that the fact that you can' just forsake QWERTY because you'll probably use other people's computers, and carrying around an extra keyboard or changing their keyboard layout isn't really the most convenient thing to do. So, with all that, it's no wonder that most people don't want to switch. Qwerty is fast enough for most people who are even interested in speed, and the trouble of switching to Dvorak an maintaining 2 key layouts in your brain is just too much trouble.

Re:I'm left handed

[AvitarX]

Funny, I am right handed and I would like 4 buttons on the left side for 54 possible combinations. I could hold the phone towards me with my hand behind it.

65 combos will get enough to send emails and text, and would be very easy to manage, if the thumb gets thrown into it, it is harder to squeeze the finger buttons.

sevent fingered hands

[tyme]

How, I wonder, does he intend to hold this mobile device if all five fingers are involved in pressing the buttons? He also doesn't seems to think that you can combine a coding pattern space with the inactive state of the buttons (when none are being pressed). I'd say he hasn't put any thought at all into this mechanism (just as he hasn't done any research for prior work: e.g. chording keyboards). He clearly hasn't build even a non-working mechanical prototype to see if any of this is usable (take a pack of cards, draw some buttons on the box and try using the resulting chording device. For extra credit, do it with just the deck of cards without the box).

Here are some of the the problems:

1. You need to be able to hold the device, which robs the thumb and at least one finger from being able to operate the keys.
   
2. You can't encode a symbol on the keys when none are active, so that takes away one code point.
   
3. You need to allow for delay between synchronized keypresses (not all fingers will depress the keys simultaneously) so this will limit your typing speed.
   
4. You need to learn the damn chords, which most people are pretty bad at (heck, they're usually pretty bad at learning to type non-chorded as well).