On-Screen Keyboards

More and more projects are done concerning applications for PDA's, mobile phones a.s.o. Quite a lot of those include the use of a keyboard which often is a keyboard on-screen. Since I did a study (during my study Interaction Design) for Philips (Philips Media Benelux) and IPO (Institute for Perception Research, Eindhoven University of Technology) concerning the use of on-screen keyboards (or 'soft keyboards'), I feel urged to a few remarks on the subject.

1. Do not use the QWERTY-layout for the default keyboard.
Originally keyboards that came with typewriters were alphabetical. Those keyboards were mechanical devices that used a kind of small hammers (with a character on the end) to produce a character on a sheet of paper. When you typed with a certain speed, often the hammers would collide and get stuck. You had to stop then, so in the end the overall speed was not too good.

A different layout became popular (amongst the manufacturers), especially since the inventor sold his idea (the QWERTY-layout, I believe it was to Remington). In this layout, the most used letters were assigned to the weaker (slower) fingers, thus resulting in a slower speed, but effectively in a faster speed, concerning the whole proces.

Since the invention of the IBM electric ball-typewriter the need for the QWERTTY-layout has gone, but we got stuck with it, the alternative being reschooling every typist in the world.
A design that could deliver more speed than the alphabetical keyboard is the Dalton-layout.

2. Use the Alphabetical Layout as a default
Most people know the Alphabet quite well. Even experienced typists do know the alphabet better than the QWERTY-layout. They do know the QWERTY-layout, of course, but most of it is muscle-memory (That is what you use when you need money. Even if you know your code by heart, most people have to make the moves with their fingers to remember the exact code). The Alphabet was learned when you were very young, you do have a profound fuzzy knowledge of it. You know that the 'T' is near the end, while the 'F' is near the beginning, which is enough for fast 'hunt & peck'.

3. The underlying usability is more important than the keyboard-layout.
This was my main conclusion in the end. I felt I had the obligation to mention (not everybody was pleased with that, since officially it was outside the scope of my research. Well, in that case, call it a case of serendipity).
A great example of underlying usability is the search-functionality as used in OS X on Apple Computers. It is sufficient to provide the first characters and you can scroll from there.

Last but not least:
4. Let the user choose its favourite keyboard-layout
Test may show that an Alphabetical layout is faster, but that doesn't mean that it is in the perception of the user. If he/she prefers another layout (and that may very wel be because he/she perceives the QWERTY-layout to be faster), let him/her choose! It may be an emotional decision, but if it makes somebody happy, we should not prevent it.

More information
Different keyboard-layout in different languages (did you know there even is a Dutch keyboard-layout?)

Usability vs Experience

Usually people look upon me as a usability-enthusiast, an evangelist even. To be honest, I was. In fact I still am, but only so far. When I started as an Interaction Designer my focus was on making it easy for users to use products, make it understandable, make things transparent. Important was to use the right labels, the way the information should be constructed, aso. The reason that I started my study Interaction Design was that I always had the feeling that "things weren't right", "it should be possible to make to make things better". Then I stumbled upon Psychology of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman. And suddenly I understood: "Wow, things can be done! You just have to design them in a better way". So I took up Interaction Design, concentrating on cognitive ergonomics, usability.

But I always had the feeling there was something more. I couldn't exactly put my finger on it, but the feeling was that I seemed to miss something. Again it was Don Norman, he then published Emotional Design. And again things fell in place. After that I discovered Train of Thoughts, by John Lenker.
So I finally grew up and understood why people used SMS, despite of its horrible interface (instead of typing 10 numbers and speaking what they had to say, people punched 10 numbers and kept punching to get the message across). Like I understood before about games, games have to be exciting, it does not matter if they look good (ouch!), it's just the box that it is sold in has to look good. And the same goes for websites, people don't visits a site because it looks good, but because they find the needed information there, preferably fast. And I could go on this way.

Since I live in the Netherlands, and we are a cycling country, just one more example I used in my classes. When you cycle from home to school (or your office or whatever) each morning and you have a choice between two routes, one along the highway straight on for several miles, the other on the other side of the same highway but it meanders along a stream, leads you through a few trees, but also is a mile longer. When you're in a hurry, you will take the fastest route. But when people have the time, a majority will choose the longer route, just because it is more appealing, more pleasant to use.
Indeed, just so much for functionality, for usability. That's only a part of our lives.