TypeRight: A Keyboard with Tactile Error Prevention (CHI-2009 Round 2)

TypeRight: A Keyboard with Tactile Error Prevention (CHI-2009 Round 2)

By: Alexander Hoffman, Daniel Spelmezan, Jan Borchers

Summary:
This paper was about TypeRight. TypeRight is a new input device for txt entry which combines the advantages of a tactile feedback system with the error prevention methods of word processors through magnets. It does this by extending the regular keyboard so that the resistance to press a key that would create a spelling error is harder than the resistance that would not create a spelling error. This tactile feedback is very important for letting users now that an input error needs to be corrected and it conveys additional information. Typing errors can be addressed in one of three ways: Prevention, live correction and aftercare. Prevention tells the users that an error will be made before making it. Live correction corrects errors while the typing is happening. Aftercare is the most widely used, and takes place after the fact. Prevention is the strictest of these. Another way to prevent errors would have been to add a short timeout where nothing can be pushed, but this is not a good solution because it the timing is never right. It would either end up being too slow or too fast for users to be of use. The study found that the number of backspace key presses was reduced by 46% with users using the TypeRight. The researchers also discovered that TypeRight reduced the number of mistyped letters by 87%. For the novice user average execution time of typing was very similar, but in the expert TypeRight user it was proven to increase typing speed by 10%. One thing they would like to work on for the future is to make the TypeRight quieter.

Discussion:
I thought this was an interesting area of research, but I’m not sure how much faster the human body can type without some help from other sources. I think the keyboard has a good design, but that to see a significant improvement we are going to have to see something off the wall emerge. For now though, the TypeRight seems like a reasonable solution to allowing users to type faster.