Cell Phone Input Ideas

I've often noted how terrible most cell phone interfaces are. Not the least part of which is text input. I'd like to describe what I consider to be a better system, but first, I'd like to point to to a study done on the current system, versus a system that is very similar to my idea.

This study shows three input methods for cell phones. The third is remarkably similar to a method I've described before, but lacks a key feature of it: it still clings to the "counting order" on the old phone dials, instead of using orientation (up, down, left, right) to differentiate letters.


Furthermore, there is a _HUGE_ bias in their test users that selects for pre-existing input methods: all subjects are Comp-Sci grad students. Talk about a group of people with:

1) a predisposition for stupid, backwards text input! Qwerty, anyone?

2) the tendency to be early-adopters, and familiarize themselves with the workings of new technology relatively quickly

3) a high tolerance for user-unfriendly and cumbersome design, as long as the interface provides "power"

not to mention:
4) a higher-than-average intelligence. I mean, not just college students, but college GRAD students.


All of these things pre-select for the "new, improved, but same old bass-ackwards system" that has the highest WPM in the test.

I would propose this test:

Get a group of people who have never used text messaging, or do so very rarely (group A)
Get another group of people who use text messaging ALL the time (group B)

Divide each group in 3. Give subgroups 1A and 1B standard text input. Give groups 2A and 2B improved standard input. Give groups 3A and 3B two-key positional input.
Let them use it for a week. Text-message at least 3 times daily to the participants in Group A, to make sure they are using the system.

Week 2: change it up! rotate the phones to the next set of sub-groups. (1s)->(2s)->(3s)->(1s)

Week 3: change it up again! At the end of this week, everyone has spent a week with each input type. Questionnaires! Download phone data (one could use an Android phone with special software to count wpm, word counts, etc.)

Do we need a control group? A mixed group of veterans and new users with standard input for all three weeks? That might give us a good control.
Also, as for measurements, a custom program on the phones could detect keypresses per minute, as well as words (delimited by the "space" key, with other letters in between) and average word size (3 letters? 5 letters? 2 letters?). Word size would be a good indicator as to whether the user was using common abbreviations. For example: "wut r u up 2."

Enter a better design:
This is the layout for a positional two-key input system for a phone. The first thing you should notice is that the keys do not list the letters they input. Instead, they feature them in different orientations on the key. To enter any letter, simply press the key that contains that letter, and then press the key that contains the direction of the letter you wish to type. Thus, "a" becomes 24. "B" becomes 22, "C," 26, and so on. Another neat feature of this design is that the star and pound signs have functions too. The star key will invoke the lower-left printed character, which is always a symbol. The pound sign, likewise, invokes the lower-right character, which is a numeral on all number keys. The "*" key also has many of the commonly used punctuation on it, and hitting it twice will input a period, a very handy place to put one--hopefully this will encourage lazy typists to end their sentences. Remember, when texting, please end before you send.

Oh! I almost forgot. Ever had trouble getting that cursor to go anywhere fast in the texting app on your phone? Never typed fast enough for it to matter? Well, 14 and 06 are "home" and "end" keys, respectively. And, because hitting two keys just to get a single space would be annoying, those two function keys at the top on most phones are now space and backspace.

There is even room for expansion on this layout, to incorporate larger character sets. With 7 positions per key, and 12 keys, it would have enough characters to house the entire 40-some-odd-character set of the Japanese phonetic alphabet, or hiragana. Not to mention Spanish, Greek, Cyrillic, and more.

One more thing! You might not have noticed, but some of the keys have things in the center. Right now, just * and #, but potentially others. These characters are accessed by typing *5 and #5, respectively. Furthermore, at a risk of overloading the keys, one could even use the top corners, mapped to 1 and 3. However, even at this point, the keys admittedly look a bit cluttered. Nevertheless, I think this could be a very usable and efficient method of input. Perhaps, with the advent of Google's cell phone OS, Android, this could be made a reality!

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Appropriately Overwrought for a First Post?

Salutations amicable acquaintances and local habitants!

As you can see, I have a new blog! I shall wear many hats on this blog, as is my habit when interacting with the carbon community as well!

One of them, some of you are familiar with, and wondering why you haven't seen it in a while:
The fedora of Holistic Computing. This will be its new home.

Another is the mortarboard of the Videogame Connoisseur. This is one was once thought extinct.

Myriad more may manifest momentarily, 'mid musings made via media measureless!

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