Onscreen Keyboard [was Re: [Usability] Keyboard technology enhancement, usability implications?]

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

(Please trim subject line to just "Onscreen Keyboard" if you reply)

On Wed, 20 Jul 2005, darcy parks wrote:

> Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2005 20:52:08 -0400
> From: darcy parks <darcy parks gmail com>
> To: Tom Conneely <tom conneely gmail com>, usability gnome org
> Subject: Re: [Usability] Keyboard technology enhancement,
>      usability implications?
>
> I think it's neat, but I don't see it as really useful.  I think the
> Photoshop setup could be confusing if I wanted to add some text (mode
> confusion).  Since all those buttons are on the screen anyways, I
> don't see a big reason to put them on they keyboard.

There is a lot to be said for the standard Alphabet.

It is a set of widely recognised symbols and icons most of us learnt a
very young age so much so that we think of them as text rather than
just another graphic.

Iconography can often be difficult to decipher and figuring out the
meaning of a graphic means can often be slower than reading the associated
text.

<!-- Insert clever comments about pictures and a thousand words here -->

> The Quake setup might help for learning the game, but after the while
> I don't imagine that any game players look at the keyboard.  In a game
> environment you have to be especially fast, so having to look at the
> keyboard is something to be avoided.

Any quake player looking at the keyboard for long will very quickly find
themselves unceremoniously shot dead.

> I have an "internet keyboard" myself with special buttons like
> favourites, forward, backwards and such.  All I use are the rightmost
> and leftmost ones, because they feel different and I can figure out
> which one I'm using by just by running my fingers over the keyboard.

Keyboards are not supposed to be looked at for very long.  Learning to
type was one of the best time investments I have made in many years.
It drove me crazy how the Macintosh used different
The little notches on the
home keys F and J make the keyboard all about touch rather than vision
and I would be more interested in a keyboard that made greater use of
tactile feedback rather than visual feedback.

Electric Shock keyboard, fun at parties!  Patents pending :P

Rather than having visual feedback under your fingers where you should not
be looking anyway it would be nice to have onscreen visual feedback of
what you are doing on the keyboard.

This is something which would already have to be built into any kind of
handheld device or Typing tutor, anyone know an existing GTK application
like that?*

If we had that kind of on screen keyboard it could probably be extended to
help teach people not only how to type but also how to learn the specific
keyboards shortcuts for a new program.  The images displayed onscreen for
the keys could change to indicate their functionality when ctrl is pressed
to help users learn the shortcuts.  We could probably use some of the
stock icons and change z x c v to the respective icons for Undo Cut Copy
Paste for example.

(Admittedly I am always looking for ways to encourage Gnome and GPE to
become more closely integrated and share applications push for a more
inclusive idea of what Gnome means.)

* Screenshot of GPE Using a "Virtual Keyboard"
http://handhelds.org/~gpe/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=Applications&id=port_22126

* GOK although described as an on screen keyboard seems to be quite a
different kind of on screen control device and I wouldn't say resembles a
physical QWERTY keyboard but there is probably some obvious software I've
overlooked.


To reiterate I think showing an onscreen visual repsentation of the
keyboard would be a much better (and easier to implement) way of providing
more hints about with keybinding shortcuts and help users to learn.


Sincerely

Alan Horkan

Inkscape http://inkscape.org
Abiword http://www.abisource.com
Dia http://gnome.org/projects/dia/
Open Clip Art http://OpenClipArt.org

Alan's Diary http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/