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    iColemak

    • Started by padde
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    13-Feb-2008 15:19:03#1 iColemak

    You probably guess where I am headed with the subject line.

    Two questions:
    1. Would Colemak typing be faster than QWERTY on an iPhone?
    2. What is the optimal keyboard layout for iPhone typing?

    I believe the fastest method for typing on an iPhone is "two-thumb typing". My initial thoughts would be that the home row on a conventional keyboard should be pushed out vertical on the sides of the iPhone keyboard.

    I am not even sure if the iPhone keyboard needs to be in a conventional keyboard set-up, as I have seen international versions with more keys added. This raises yet another question,
    3. What would be the ideal set-up for a virtual keyboard on an iPhone?

    Cheers,
    iPadde

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    13-Feb-2008 16:44:40#2 Re: iColemak

    well I am waiting to see the iPhone SDK to see what can be done.

    being much less ambitious,  simply having the Colemak layout as an option.   With "two-thumb typing" less distance traveled, less movement would only be good and help accuracy.

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    • Shai
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    13-Feb-2008 16:56:03#3 Re: iColemak

    There are many differences between touch typing with all your fingers on a keyboard, and just using your thumbs on an iPhone.
    If I were to design such a keyboard, I would adopt some of the ideas from the IBM's SHARK layout. The hex shape is an interesting idea, although it might not be suitable for everyone. Now the product based on that technology is called ShapeWriter.
    But instead of having one home position in the center where the space bar is in the SHARK layout, there would be two: one in the center-left, and another in the center-right containing the E and the Space-bar, and the other keys around them ordered in frequency.
    See also the Microsoft Origami dial keys.

    Another way to touch type would be one-handed 4-finger touch typing, in which it would be more similar to Maltron right-handed keyboard.

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    • From: Viken, Norway
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    13-Feb-2008 18:24:35#4 Re: iColemak

    The ideal form hasn't yet been released to my knowledge. In my opinion you'd want a touchscreen for the thumb and buttons for the four other fingers, ergonomically shaped so you could hold the thing comfortably - which means there would have to be different sized versions.

    Once you got used to such a thing, you could fly with it, using the finger buttons as modifiers for the thumb pad. Semi-chorded typing would work best I believe: Total chording where different combos of finger buttons were in use would probably get too complex for many, but only using the four fingers separately you could have five shift states. You could always throw in a couple of multi-button states for special commands and macros.

    The thumb pad might use a shapewriter-type command interface in addition, for added functionality. I'm not sure if that would be better or get too confusing.

    That's just my vision though. I may be wrong.  :)

    Last edited by DreymaR (13-Feb-2008 18:26:17)

    *** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
    *** Check out my Big Bag of Keyboard Tricks for Win/Linux/TMK... ***

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    13-Feb-2008 21:28:31#5 Re: iColemak

    These are interesting ideas.  I think they have more appeal if you plan to do a lot of writing on your mobile device in a very noisy environment.  Personally, I would not want to.  Rather than working on developing new skills at either finger tapping patterns or memorizing squiggles with a stylus or a finger as words, I would much rather have something that simply reinforces my memory for touch typing with two hands.   Have a Colemak layout on my iPhone would simply reinforce the pattern I have chosen to use when writing.  If I really found the need to do a lot of writing on the go, I would much rather have a bluetooth wireless foldable keyboard (or wifi) to touch type on. 

    Having learned things like Grafitti and Fitally in the past, I am more interested in technology that doesn't ask me to take up brain real estate with what I would rather have be occupied by piano patterns. 

    I am just skeptical.  With limited real estate, speech at 200 wpm with a smart way for correction makes a lot more sense.   An iPhone with MacSpeech Dictate setup with a Jawbone bluetooth headset would be the way to go. Now that
    would be awesome!

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    13-Feb-2008 22:53:47#6 Re: iColemak

    The Nokia N800 portable Internet tablet may be a useful testing ground for trying out virtual keyboard layouts, especially since it runs a version of Linux.  Anyone tried Colemak or anything else on this?  (The next-gen version, the N810, has a pull-out keyboard but it will cost you.  The N800 itself retails for $229.)

    I think even if one is essentially reduced to doing the equivalent of hunting-and-pecking on a small virtual keyboard, it helps to have the layout be the same as your familiar touch-typing layout.  When I was touch-typing QWERTY, I could hunt-and-peck on it fairly comfortably as well, on those occasions when I wasn't plonked directly in front of the keyboard, and was just using one hand.  Now that my QWERTY skills have atrophied, I don't see any benefit to using QWERTY over the simple ABCDE on my GPS device.  I think one actually learns the relative positions of the keys as a visual gestalt too, and not just as pure finger memory.  To be sure, it is not as strong a memory as the kinaesthetic, but it is there, helping to reduce the hunt time.

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    • From: Viken, Norway
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    14-Feb-2008 09:39:22#7 Re: iColemak

    Samurai: I'm thinking of what people would do in a situation where you don't have a surface large enough to touch-type on. For the situations where you do, I'm sure you could do well with a virtual keyboard. Maybe a laser-drawn one like the one I described in my keyboard modding post. I'm sure they could make such a board for mobile devices eventually.

    But I see a lot of people typing short messages while standing on a bus or even walking in the street! In this day and age I think that much of the mobile typing needs to be truly mobile in the sense that you won't have a space to put down and fold out your typing device. Thus it will have to be very compact and usable while holding it in one hand, like a mobile phone. And it should still be a lot better to use than today's mobile phones.

    I'm also thinking about how interesting it is that it seems so easy to use that left-handed Colemak layout that simply mirrors the layout when you press the modifier key (Space). I think ds26gte is right: It does help to be on a layout that you know well, even if you're using it differently. So maybe my idea could be combined with that thought?

    Maybe if the thumb had one keyboard row on the pad. One row is 12 keys long which may be overmuch, so possibly just the main 10 (ARSTDHNEIO and corresponding keys on the other 3 rows) and then an extra row for the less used stuff. Then the other fingers would control which row you'd type on - for instance, no other finger buttons pressed would give the home row while the index finger gave the upper row etc. The touchpad "row" wouldn't have to be linear; to make it reachable for the thumb it could be curved a lot and still be recognizable. To get shifted characters there might be a sticky shift button (thumb or other finger - not sure). Now you could have a Colemak layout combined with my idea!

    Envisioning is a great sport.  ;)

    Last edited by DreymaR (14-Feb-2008 09:50:15)

    *** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
    *** Check out my Big Bag of Keyboard Tricks for Win/Linux/TMK... ***

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    08-Mar-2008 03:31:49#8 Re: iColemak

    hey guys.

    I designed my own (Norwegian) layout for the iphone..

    It is based on the 14 most used characters and then pressing shift gives the last 15 characters.. everything is in lowercase. this is really early phase, and the setup is loosely based on colemak..

    the key assignment is the following:
    a(å) - r(y) - s(f) - t(c) - d(b)
    n(j) - e(æ) - i(u) - o(ø) - l(q)
    v(z) - k(p) - g(h) - m(w)
    .(,) - space(x)

    the reason for this? well.. I really struggled hitting the right letters on the iphone, now I get rid of useless characters such as x,w,z etc.

    so far I am typing slower than with the QWERTY default setup, but I hope this will change over time..

    this is how it actually looks:
    166015.jpeg

    if you want, you can try this out yourselves if you have an iphone.

    instructions are as following:
    1. install mobile enhancer from installer
    2. grab the folder I altered at http://www.mediafire.com/?xtpmzmsceid
    3. replace the folder /Library/MobileEnhancer/ on the iPhone with my folder
    4. use russian (cyrillic) as the keyboard language

    any thoughts on the layout?

    thanks

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    08-Mar-2008 05:17:27#9 Re: iColemak

    latest - switched left and right hand side to go over two rows

    166026.jpeg

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    • From: Viken, Norway
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    08-Mar-2008 08:47:48#10 Re: iColemak

    Interesting!

    'erntsilakodgmvfupbh' is the order of the letter frequencies for Norwegian (http://www.bckelk.ukfsn.org/words/etaoin.html). I don't know if you'd want to do anything with that. Seems you're fine, and I don't know whether there is a "home row effect" on the iPhone at all since I've never used one.

    If it were me, I might try making it even more Colemak-like for the recognition effect. May not be so important though.

    *** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
    *** Check out my Big Bag of Keyboard Tricks for Win/Linux/TMK... ***

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    09-Mar-2008 23:19:31#11 Re: iColemak

    I think three-finger typing would be faster than two-thumb, i.e. hold it with one hand an use index-middle-ring on other hand to type. Use it like a 10-key. I have only ever typed on an iPhone once, so I'm not sure, but this sounds fast.

    My typing speed record: http://hi-games.net/typing-test/watch?u=493

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    14-Jul-2008 13:31:58#12 Re: iColemak

    Doesn't the iphone use a dictionary to guess the correct letters if your finger lands between or over many of the really tiny keys? I wonder if colemak would be worse in accuracy because of so many similar letters being next to each other??

    I think a semi-chorded keyboard with larger buttons might work really awesome on the iphones multi-touch touchscreen though.

    Last edited by miket (14-Jul-2008 13:33:12)
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