Now that a number of you have responded and shown interest which I'm very pleased about (although no one's bothered to test it yet), I'll update the original post later on with a section briefly describing how I arrived at the layout in its present form.

I think this layout is a step forward from old layouts based on the outdated model of having one letter per key (unless you're using shorthand or chording). That model belongs firmly to the last century. And with seamless switching between one handed, two handed and QWERTY layouts, it should be a whole lot more fun.

I'm very excited about how far we can take this system with a strong implementation.

Home9, hm. I'll think about it.

I would say that people do understand what T9 is, as a lot of them have already used it at some point on older mobiles. You knew what it was. The only confusion is the association with predictive text. In a sense it is predictive as it disambiguates a sequence and offers the most frequent word. But I feel "word disambiguation" is a more accurate description.

That's exactly it, yes. Phrase Express is a text replacement program. It should be obvious to anyone who follows my instructions.

I didn't explain how it worked at first, because I wanted users to test it and see for themselves. I thought a long explanation about disambiguation would potentially be off-putting. I understand though that you're not on Windows and it might be more difficult.

I will certainly expand on it over time. I hate reading long and boring threads where they take ages to show you how to install it, which is why I put the instructions first and "Background" second.

Yes, the inadvertent advantage of using QWERTY as the fallback layout, is that it has the least amount of words that can be typed on its homerow.

T9 seemed magical to me when I first used it on my Sony Ericsson k800i back in 2006 (my first mobile phone!). And that was with the unoptimized version. Of course it's all plain logic when you think about it. A certain sequence can only match up to a certain number of words.

pinkyache, I would love to hear those ideas. Mobiles have surpassed desktop computers in typing wizardry, and it's time all that changed.

I too see massive potential in autocorrect. I've tested so many different programs for Windows and not one of them matched up to my expectations.

Phrase Express does work anywhere with text entry.

I'll check that out. I believe though that Dasher uses a character level predictive component rather than word level. I do need to learn how to code for Android so that I can create my T9-MessagEase hybrid.

Excellent. Let me know how it goes.

Thank you pinkyache for being the first to try it.

I presume you used the 10FastFingers test or the alternative test. The practice file contains the words that they use, which are some of the most frequent English words.

Initially I used PhraseExpress for my shorthand system. The idea later occurred to me that I could also use it for the PC port of T9, and that it would allow T9 to be used seamlessly alongside QWERTY.

The groupings you currently see are those that the inventors of T9 found resulted in the lowest number of conflicts and so increased performance. They later had to change the layout to the alphabetical arrangement so that the phone manufacturers, who already had the alphabetical ordering on their devices that consumers were used to using through Multitap, would buy it. See this article. It's a shame as it would have prevented a lot of those "embarrassing typos" that davkol linked to and which gave T9 a worse reputation. Cliff Kushler, one of the inventors of T9, is reported to have said that their optimized layout is 5 times more efficient. The paper on T9 also details its efficiency.

I simply ordered the groupings by the total letter frequencies taken from Wikipedia, and placed the highest frequencies on the index and middle fingers, followed by ring and pinky fingers. That may or may not be optimum, but we can always change things around.

ewv = 12.702%+2.360%+0.978% = 16.04%
thj = 9.056%+6.094%+0.153% = 15.303%
adf = 8.167%+4.253%+2.228% = 14.648%
olx = 7.507%+4.025%+0.150% = 11.682%
img = 6.966%+2.406%+2.015% = 11.387%
su = 6.327%+2.758% = 9.085%
nbz = 6.749%+1.492%+0.074% = 8.315%
rpq = 5.987%+1.929%+0.095% = 8.011%
cyk = 2.782%+1.974%+0.772% = 5.528%

I then arranged the conflict words in order of frequency within large corpora, cross checking for consistency. The British National Corpus and Global Web-Based English Corpus were used. The Google n-grams corpora are the largest and may be used.

I see a lot of disagreement about the purported benefits of rolls and alternation. Some argue certain rolls are better than others. Shai has said rolls either way are desirable. I want to avoid generalizing or applying a theory to fit everyone.

I would need help from a coder for a way to analyze layouts and conflicts, just like Patorjk's analyzer, except specific to overloaded keyboards. Then we could have a minimal motion layout to suit every individual's preferences.

Personally I find Dvorak's increased alternation to be neither more comfortable nor less comfortable.

Two handed alternation may not be beneficial for the one handed layouts, as it would mean more jumps between the middle and top rows. So optimizing for rolls could be a better idea. Given that at the same time you're trying to reduce the number of conflicts, the number of possible layouts is narrowed down. If you can deduce a layout that would keep conflicts down, reduce same key combos and increase rolls, or another criteria you think would be beneficial, please post it so that I can test it.

A radical departure is exactly what I want. Something as different from QWERTY as possible. The more different two layouts the less the confusion between them, in my experience of learning multiple layouts.

The problem with the traditional layouts overloaded onto the home row is that while they might make transition easier, they all have 30/521 or more conflicts in my practice file, which means similar performance to an unoptimized alphabetic arrangement that also has around 30/521. Skiena's findings (more below) confirm this, as his web page states "Our study of the impact of keyboard layout on reconstruction error rates shows, surprisingly, that keyboard designs which balance character frequencies do not significantly outperform more natural alphabetic layouts." Manual conflict resolution when there are many conflicts is tedious and either slows down typing, as the user has to look at the screen for visual cues all the time, or results in typos.

A powerful prediction algorithm would help with these layouts. Steven Skiena, a renowned algorithm professor and writer, came up with an algorithm described in the paper "Sentence reconstruction using word ambiguity resolution". It is described on his web page demoing a Minimum Motion Keyboard, although that's not working now. The web page claims "character reconstruction rates of at least 98.4%; for all standard keyboard layouts, including QWERTY and Dvorak." I emailed him but he said he'd lost the source code for it as it was such a long time ago. (The patent was filed for in 1995).

Yes, I will need to implement the list feature. I might need a coder's help for that though. For now just bear in mind the three conflict words (gold, pound, hold). Given that conflicts are very infrequent, a user may be able to just rote memorise every single occurrence within the English dictionary to muscle memory and not rely on a list at all. If anyone has experience with either PhraseExpress or coding and thinks they know how to do it, let me know.

Many ergonomic marketed keyboards make use of both thumbs, such as the Maltron keyboard. Why not make use of it rather than it dangling uselessly, after all? It does take time to get used to and you might want to float your left hand. It saves you having to move your index finger to hit the "v" key.

I haven't yet found a particularly optimized 8 key layout, with 16/521 conflicts being the lowest I tested for the "unconstrained" layout given here, compared to just 3/521 for the 9-key optimized layout that the T9 inventors came up with. I found a 7 key layout they also came up with which has 17/521 conflicts. That's only 1 more than the 8 key unconstrained. I have some other ready-made layouts that I'd like to test. With all the processing power in today's computers, we should in theory have an advantage over what was available in the 90s in finding optimum layouts.

Thanks for the suggestion. I'm not good with Photoshop so someone else could make a nicer finger chart. For now:

     a     o     e      u     k          h     t     n     s
    cyk   su   thj   evw  nbz      adf   olx  img   rpq

There was a study that found that to be an actual benefit. The user doesn't focus on what they're seeing on the screen, and types more accurately. I'll have to find it again.

Word stems (partial words) haven't been implemented yet, but are planned and will reduce that problem. I quite like the fact that my gibberish turns to actual words. It feels like magic. I'd suggest not focusing on the letters being output to the screen at all. Until you've finished the word, you're just doing it mentally.

I do just fine with five different layouts and I don't think I have any special talent in that regard. Believing you'll lose your skill is exactly what you want to avoid. I find that the more different two layouts are, the easier it is to switch between them. That's why I think Shai's argument for maintaining letters on hands is wrong. Opinion does differ on the subject, as many people who choose Dvorak choose it specifically for its difference. I was one.

You'd be surprised how quickly you learn a new layout, when the number of keys are reduced and you remember groups of letters. Take a look at the diagram, try the 10FF typing test and see what you remember, take another look, until you can do it without looking.

Think of it as learning a new layout rather than switching layout and trust in your brain's abilities. I very much appreciate that you gave it a try.

I still have mine as well. It served me a good few years (before I got my iPod touch 4th gen, my favourite electronic gadget of all time. I found iOS's autocorrect even more mind blowing than T9). But yes the keys are stiff, especially after you come from using a touchscreen. Back in the day it was the business though. I've never used the earlier models. My current phone is a Sony Xperia S.

Shai moved the common letters to the home row to reduce motion. That's what's indicated on the Colemak homepage, at least. I can't see any mention that it was done to make touch typing easier to learn from scratch. If anything my layout would be easier to learn from scratch as there are less key positions to remember.

If you mean that you're able to type more words on the home row, and that typing lessons tend to begin with words that can be typed on the home row, then yes the lessons are a bit more interesting to start off with than typing "ffd asdf lkd". But then you have the disadvantage on Colemak of the less frequent keys being the keys you need to reach for, making them the most difficult to learn because you use them the least. And reach keys are difficult enough at the beginning because you have to leave the homerow to hit them.

You're absolutely right davkol. Whether the reduced motion actually serves any benefit over QWERTY is arguable, but my layout might be a way to test that hypothesis. It's one of the reasons I made the layout.

No one's forcing you to learn the home row keys on QWERTY first, you can learn whatever keys in whatever order you want, and practice whichever words you like. Which is the best way to do it I'd say.

Most people are incredibly lazy!

It doesn't have to be. Anyone can devise their own training regime and learn any letter from any row in any order, rather than follow a boring tutorial. It's not rocket science.

It's difficult to discuss "anything important" or on topic when you can't be bothered to try the layout and leave some form of feedback, which is what this thread is about. Although I appreciate pinkyache for being the only one who has done so, so far.

You don't have to follow the tutor. You can devise your own regime and learn letters on other rows. Is that so hard to understand?
If you read back, davkol thinks that Colemak is easier to learn than QWERTY because the frequent letters are placed on the home row. I don't believe that's true.

I'd rather that unless you've tried my layout and have something relevant to contribute you didn't comment further on this thread. No offence.

I used Qwerty for about 20 years.  I tried to learn how to touch type at least four times, but each time gave up, I'd resort all to easily to my hunt and peck because of the friction.

I was super pleased with Dvorak that I could actually type some words early on, that was a real helping hand, and spurred me on, even if I was dead slow.

People do require some guidance when learning.  They might not know how to construct a useful tutorial themselves!   They just want to get hands on.

Many tutors (software) start with the home row, and expand from there.  I'm not sure if finger patterns are emphasized or it's just random word lists.  I could do with a good overview and comparison of the tutors.

If you do want to practice the entire keyboard (a-z), you can use alphabetical sentences for better rounding.

Don't forget the home-row (right hand) is less familiar ground for those that have migrated from Qwerty.   And those users probably have better command of the U, I and O positions.

Okay, when I said 'tried', I meant I took a touch typing program, probably did half the lessons, and did that every five years or so!

If you want to be pedantic, then no I didn't start from scratch with Dvorak.

Many people lack self-discipline/restraint.  Old habits die hard.

Personally learning the layout (where the glyphs lay) was easy.  Getting any speed up was a challenge for me.  I never said learning Dvorak was easy!

I figured I might as well compute the hand-alternation stats for T9-QWERTY:

P(alt w/i n) \ n      1     2     3     4     5     6     7     8     9    10
HIEAQMTSRN:        80.2  96.6  99.2  99.8  99.9 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
QWERTY:            69.0  87.6  95.4  98.1  99.2  99.6  99.8  99.9 100.0 100.0
Wide-Colemak:      71.6  90.0  96.1  98.3  99.2  99.6  99.8  99.9  99.9 100.0
T9-QWERTY:         68.1  87.9  95.8  98.4  99.3  99.6  99.8  99.9 100.0 100.0


P(n+1 same hand)\n+1       2      3      4      5      6      7      8      9     10     11
HIEAQMTSRN:            19.77   3.41   0.84   0.23   0.06   0.02   0.01   0.00   0.00   0.00
QWERTY:                30.99  12.35   4.65   1.89   0.82   0.40   0.18   0.08   0.04   0.02
Wide-Colemak:          28.43   9.98   3.85   1.69   0.83   0.43   0.22   0.11   0.06   0.03
T9-QWERTY:             31.86  12.06   4.16   1.65   0.72   0.36   0.19   0.08   0.04   0.01

It seems to hold at more or less QWERTY's rate.  Example same-hand strings:

T9-QWERTY (length 9):
familiar.


T9-QWERTY (length 8):
lf-aggra
doorfram
sentence
paragrap
subjects
prodigal
old-forg
programm


T9-QWERTY (length 7):
wheneve
afraid.
sweethe
proximi
olidifi
immigra
mirror,
mirror.
nessent
between
imilarl
success
apologi


T9-QWERTY (length 6):
dollar
shutte
approa
doorma
stunne
formal
aillig
subset
cheste
"I'm-"
checke
propri
veness
modifi
droom,
droom.
"Alrig
rappor
larifi
"Famil
mmaril
necess
whethe
twenty
'alrig
htness
droid,
esents
afford
floor,
WHETHE
scenes
unjust
bestse
succee
ntense
omorro
or..."
millio
priori
sheets
teness
sunset


T9-QWERTY (length 5):
omfor
"Good
Prim,
alf."
r/fil
Grim,
pid."
mp-li
"I'll
middl
load,
Impro
nvest
liar,
illag
bench
fair,
ssues
"Mm,"
stenc
sense
rill.
far."
-room
rrifi
appar
ttent
riod,
olorf
adlig
aid."
bette
orld,
"'Lo,
ecent
bunch
ssets
PROFI
origi
uency
pillo
impli
glari
sucks
-pop.
rolli
uchsc
benev
ard-i
oppor
uests
cense
ldom-
Promi
load.
propp
ograp
xampl
imal,
bsess
gardl
Maggi
googl
nutes
mappi
Googl
SUBST
'R.D.
EVENT
impor
ntees
iddo,
firm.
event
Jesus
appoi
glamo
hence
all,"
ampir
foldi
imagi
xplai
garag
"offi
eeves
ntent
subst
raili
fp/ar
DAMAG
opoli
nywhe
road,
from.
sewhe
Origi
Dad?"
dragg
htest
nnect
these
raid,
road-
ueeze
impro
ool."
dropp
sucke
follo
groom
'imag
ncest
ncess
ill."
kness
Propo
cente
cness
tchen
ral].
nject
Domai
diggi
forgi
gripp
"I...
IMPLI
Check
ild-"
promi
MPLAR
firml
did,"
ckets
cketw
TNESS
door,
door.
all?"
ckete
dard.

Limitations: this does not take the dictionary into account.  Rather, it assumes perfect prediction with the default layout.

Script and details from here.

Spacebar is currently set to "no hand".  To change this, in the line

    alternation_results[n] = dict([(layout_name, find_same_hand(content, n, layout_hands, space_hand = None, enter_hand = RIGHT))
                                   for layout_name, layout_hands in layouts_hands.iteritems()])

change space_hand = None to space_hand = RIGHT.

In case you were planning on using it, FYI I've just made a huge under-the-hood cleanup.  I do plan to evolve it further, but I've exhausted all my spare time for now =P

Imagine typing with two mice! :) If the mouse inputs could be separated, of course (not possible with today's USB HID standard).

I used to have a mouse with five buttons plus wheel and that was really great. The thumb had two buttons and the pinky none so there could've been room for one more and maybe a thumb wheel/button (I've seen those) instead. That's quite a lot of possibilities.

However, for typing the beauty of the keyboard is that it lets us input discrete information from a largish pool (the available keys) fast and flexibly. A mouse has similarly complex information given the two continuous axes but for typing you really want discrete input. Something like MessagEase or one of the other mentioned sweep-enabled keyboard systems for phones might be used to bridge this gap, but I'm unsure about both the speed and ergonomy in such a project. It's generally accepted that mice aren't so ergonomically sound – even the vertical or trackball ones.