The capability to efficiently input texts with hardware or soft keyboards is a major achievement to improve the digital inclusion of motor-impaired users in the modern ICT world. One way to obtain this capability is the use of multi-character keyboards that make it possible to significantly reduce the number of selected keystrokes. To this aim, in this paper we propose the orthogonal pseudo-syllabic layout for an English keyboard with high keystroke savings. Since English is characterised by a large number of frequent monosyllabic words, the careful design of the consonant and vowel graphemes that compose the pseudo-syllables makes it possible to directly select the most frequent multi-character units of the language. Therefore, the frequency statistics of English have been carefully analysed to select a suitable set of pseudo-syllables and to choose their placement on the orthogonal layout. The keyboard layout has then been tested with the automatic acquisition of a set of English texts. The obtained keystroke savings are comparable with those obtained with other languages which, in contrast with English, are characterised by very regular orthographies.
Enhancing Digital Inclusion with an English Pseudo-Syllabic Keyboard
CURATELLI, FRANCESCO;MARTINENGO, CHIARA
2010-01-01
Abstract
The capability to efficiently input texts with hardware or soft keyboards is a major achievement to improve the digital inclusion of motor-impaired users in the modern ICT world. One way to obtain this capability is the use of multi-character keyboards that make it possible to significantly reduce the number of selected keystrokes. To this aim, in this paper we propose the orthogonal pseudo-syllabic layout for an English keyboard with high keystroke savings. Since English is characterised by a large number of frequent monosyllabic words, the careful design of the consonant and vowel graphemes that compose the pseudo-syllables makes it possible to directly select the most frequent multi-character units of the language. Therefore, the frequency statistics of English have been carefully analysed to select a suitable set of pseudo-syllables and to choose their placement on the orthogonal layout. The keyboard layout has then been tested with the automatic acquisition of a set of English texts. The obtained keystroke savings are comparable with those obtained with other languages which, in contrast with English, are characterised by very regular orthographies.
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