Multidimensional Pareto optimization of touchscreen keyboards for speed, familiarity and improved spell checking

The paper presents a new optimization technique for keyboard layouts based on Pareto front optimization. We used this multifactorial technique to create two new touchscreen phone keyboard layouts based on three design metrics: minimizing finger travel distance in order to maximize text entry speed, a new metric to maximize the quality of spell correction quality by minimizing neighbouring key ambiguity, and maximizing familiarity through a similarity function with the standard Qwerty layout. The paper describes the optimization process and resulting layouts for a standard trapezoid shaped keyboard and a more rectangular layout. Fitts' law modelling shows a predicted 11% improvement in entry speed without taking into account the significantly improved error correction potential and the subsequent effect on speed. In initial user tests typing speed dropped from approx. 21wpm with Qwerty to 13wpm (64%) on first use of our layout but recovered to 18wpm (85%) within four short trial sessions, and was still improving. NASA TLX forms showed no significant difference on load between Qwerty and our new layout use in the fourth session. Together we believe this shows the new layouts are faster and can be quickly adopted by users

Quasi-qwerty soft keyboard optimization

ABSTRACT It has been well understood that optimized soft keyboard layouts improve motor movement efficiency over the standard Qwerty layouts, but have the drawback of long initial visual search time for novice users. To ease the initial searching time on optimized soft keyboards, we explored "Quasi-Qwerty optimization" so that the resulting layouts are close to Qwerty. Our results show that a middle ground between the optimized but new, and the familiar but inefficient (Qwerty) does exist. We show that by allowing letters to move at most one step (key) away from their original positions on Qwerty in an optimization process, one can achieve about half of what free optimization could gain in movement efficiency. An experiment shows that due to users' familiarity with Qwerty, a layout with quasi Qwerty optimization could significantly reduce novice users' visual search time to between those of Qwerty and a freely optimized layout. The results in this work provide designers with a new quantitative understanding of the soft keyboard design space

Handwriting versus keyboarding in first grade: Which modality best supports written composition performance and learning?

PhD thesis in Reading researchAn important background for the present thesis is the increasing digitalisation in school, and more specifically, the Norwegian first-grade reality, where a growing number of schools provide students with personal digital devices to be used in initial writing instruction. The research that compares effects of handwriting and keyboarding on children’s early writing is, however, scarce, findings are inconsistent, and many of the studies suffer from methodological problems, for example, inadequate control of children’s prewriting experience (Wollscheid et al., 2016). The aim of the present thesis was therefore to investigate whether modality – handwriting on paper or keyboarding on digital tablet with text-to-speech functionality – affects first grader’s written composition performance and written composition learning, and whether these effects depend on children’s literacy skills (grapheme-phoneme mapping, first sound segmentation, blending, word reading, spelling and vocabulary) measured at school start. This was examined in a sample of Norwegian first graders from 18 schools, where five schools taught children to write by hand, five schools taught children to write by digital tablet postponing handwriting, and eight schools taught children to write both by hand and using a digital tablet. Children’s compositions were analysed for length and quality by formally assessing a set of text features related to both transcription (spacing, spelling and punctuation) and narrative sophistication (vocabulary, syntax and narrative structures). The text quality measures were specifically developed for assessing narratives by beginning writers which typically are short and simple. The statistical modelling was done using Bayesian methods, which allow for demonstrating evidence in both the presence and absence of effects. This thesis includes four articles. Article 1 is a philosophical discussion of how texts by beginning writers can be analysed from a quantitative viewpoint. The three remaining articles contribute to the thesis by empirically investigating the effects of modality on first graders’ written composition performance and written composition learning. Article 2 shows that first graders who are taught writing in both modalities from the start of school are likely to produce compositions of similar length and quality in both modalities. This article also shows that the lack of a modality effect on written composition performance does not depend on children’s literacy skills. For example, students with weaker literacy skills did not produce stories of higher quality in one or another modality. Article 3 demonstrates that first-grade students receiving instruction based on handwriting or digital tablets with otherwise minimal change to instruction, overall learn to compose text at the same rate throughout the first year of formal writing instruction. The students showed similar development in text length, syntactic complexity and accuracy, and narrative structures, regardless of learning to write by hand or with a digital tablet. Students writing with a digital tablet showed better performance in transcription accuracy (spelling, spacing and terminator accuracy), but showed little or no development of these text features through the first grade. Students writing by hand started at a lower performance level for transcription accuracy but showed improvement throughout the year. This difference in performance can probably be attributed to the text-to-speech functionality offered by the digital tablets. Article 4 shows that there were no interaction effects between modality and students’ literacy skills on learning to compose text. This means that there were, for example, no advantages related to learning to compose text with a digital tablet, or by hand, for students with weaker literacy skills. The conclusion of the thesis is that, in a context similar to the one studied here, modality does not substantially affect first-grade students’ written composition performance or written composition learning. Thus, it seems that instruction based on handwriting and instruction based on digital tablets can provide children with similar opportunities to develop their written composition skills in their first year of school. Before clear recommendations about the choice of modality for initial writing instruction can be made, future research should investigate the potential transition effects of going from learning to write in one modality to the other.En viktig bakgrunn for denne avhandlingen er den økende digitaliseringen i skolen, og mer spesifikt den norske første-klasse-virkeligheten, der et økende antall skoler utstyrer elevene med personlige digitale enheter til bruk i skriveopplæringen. Forskningen som sammenligner effektene av håndskrift og tastaturskriving på barns tidlige skriving er imidlertid knapp, funn er inkonsistente og mange av studiene lider av metodologiske svakheter, for eksempel utilstrekkelig kontroll av deltakernes tidligere skriveerfaring (Wollscheid et al., 2016). Målet med denne avhandlingen var derfor å undersøke om modalitet – håndskrift på papir eller tastaturskriving på nettbrett med tekst-til-tale funksjonalitet – påvirker førsteklassingers prestasjon i og læring av tekstkomposisjon, og om disse modalitetseffektene avhenger av barnas literacyferdigheter (grafem-fonem-kunnskap, framlydsanalyse, fonologisk syntese, ordlesing, staving og vokabular) målt ved skolestart. Dette ble undersøkt i et utvalg av norske førsteklassinger fra 18 skoler, hvorav fem skoler lærte barna å skrive for hånd, fem skoler utsatte håndskriftsopplæringen og lærte elevene å skrive på digitalt nettbrett, og åtte skoler lærte barna å skrive både for hånd og på digitalt nettbrett. Elevenes tekster ble analysert for lengde og kvalitet gjennom formell vurdering av et sett av teksttrekk knyttet både til transkripsjon (staving, mellomromsbruk og tegnsetting) og narrativ kompleksitet (vokabular, syntaks og narrative strukturer). Tekstkvalitetsmålene ble utviklet spesielt for å vurdere begynnerskriveres fortellinger, som typisk er korte og enkle. Den statistiske analysen ble gjort gjennom Bayesianske metoder, som kan bevise både tilstedeværelse og fravær av effekter. Avhandlingen inkluderer fire artikler. Artikkel 1 er en vitenskapsteoretisk diskusjon av hvordan tekster av begynnerskrivere kan analyseres fra et kvantitativt perspektiv. De tre resterende artiklene bidrar til avhandlingen gjennom å empirisk undersøke modalitetseffekter på førsteklassingers prestasjon i og læring av tekstkomposisjon. Artikkel 2 gir evidens for at førsteklassinger, som fra starten av første klasse lærer å skrive i begge modaliteter, etter all sannsynlighet produserer fortellinger av lik lengde og kvalitet i begge modaliteter. Denne artikkelen viser også at mangelen på en modalitetseffekt på prestasjon i tekstkomposisjon ikke avhenger av elevenes literacyferdigheter. For eksempel skrev ikke elever med svakere literacyferdigheter fortellinger av høyere kvalitet i en av modalitetene. Artikkel 3 viser at førsteklasseelever som får undervisning basert på enten håndskrift eller digitalt nettbrett, med ellers minimal forandring i undervisningen, i hovedsak lærer å komponere tekster i samme takt gjennom det første året med skriveopplæring. Elevene viste lik utvikling av tekstlengde, syntaktisk kompleksitet og nøyaktighet og narrative strukturer, uavhengig av om de lærte å skrive for hånd eller på digitalt nettbrett. Elever som skrev på nettbrett, presterte bedre på transkripsjonsnøyaktighet (stave-, mellomroms- og tegnsettingsnøyaktighet), men viste liten eller ingen utvikling av disse teksttrekkene gjennom førsteklasse. Elever som skrev for hånd, startet på et lavere nivå i transkripsjonsnøyaktighet, men viste utvikling gjennom året. Denne forskjellen i prestasjon kan sannsynligvis tilskrives tekst-til-tale funksjonaliteten på de digitale nettbrettene. Artikkel 4 viser at det ikke var noen interaksjonseffekter mellom modalitet og elevenes literacyferdigheter på læring av tekstkomposisjon. Det vil si at det var, for eksempel, ingen fordeler knyttet til å lære å komponere tekst på digitalt nettbrett, eller for hånd, for elever med svakere literacyferdigheter. Konklusjonen i avhandlingen er at, i en kontekst lik den som er studert her, påvirker ikke modalitet førsteklassingers prestasjon i tekstkomposisjon eller læring av tekstkomposisjon i vesentlig grad. Det ser altså ut som at skriveopplæring basert på håndskrift og skriveopplæring basert på nettbrett kan gi elever like muligheter for å utvikle ferdigheter i tekstkomposisjon det første året på skolen. Før klare anbefalinger om bruk av modalitet i begynneropplæring kan gis, bør framtidig forskning undersøke mulige overgangseffekter i å gå fra å lære å skrive i en modalitet til den andre modaliteten

MSU Update, 2005

MSU Update Newsletters for 2005

Ability-Based Methods for Personalized Keyboard Generation

This study introduces an ability-based method for personalized keyboard generation, wherein an individual's own movement and human-computer interaction data are used to automatically compute a personalized virtual keyboard layout. Our approach integrates a multidirectional point-select task to characterize cursor control over time, distance, and direction. The characterization is automatically employed to develop a computationally efficient keyboard layout that prioritizes each user's movement abilities through capturing directional constraints and preferences. We evaluated our approach in a study involving 16 participants using inertial sensing and facial electromyography as an access method, resulting in significantly increased communication rates using the personalized keyboard (52.0 bits/min) when compared to a generically optimized keyboard (47.9 bits/min). Our results demonstrate the ability to effectively characterize an individual's movement abilities to design a personalized keyboard for improved communication. This work underscores the importance of integrating a user's motor abilities when designing virtual interfaces.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figure

Identification of typing behaviors from large keystroke dataset

In this thesis work, keystroke-level typing data of over 168000 participants are analyzed to understand determinants of transcription typing behaviors. Keystroke patterns are analyzed in detail and linked to typing performance. Inter-Key Intervals of letter pairs and other statistical indicators of typing performance are calculated and their distributions and statistical relations are studied. These analyses show, among other findings, that Inter-Key Intervals in typing distant letter pairs in the keyboard are more predictive than other letter pairs, e.g. letter repetitions. Rollover typing, where the next key is pressed before the previous key is released, is prevalent widely, linked to faster typing with high correlation. Finally, medoids-based (PAM) unsupervised clustering of participants is performed to identify groups of typists with similar typing characteristics, and the findings from the clusters are interpreted in terms of performance, accuracy, hand movements and rollover behaviors

‘I finally understand my mistakes’–the benefits of screencast feedback

This study explores the impact of screencast feedback on maths tests for junior and high school students. While prior research emphasises the influence of feedback on learning, its effectiveness varies with type and delivery. Although studies in higher education observe improved precision and emotional connections through screencast feedback, its applicability in secondary education remains understudied. The authors surveyed 99 students, collecting responses via an 11-item questionnaire after the students had received feedback. Through thematic analysis, they found 72% favoured video feedback due to its clarity, depth and personal touch. Conversely, 17% preferred written feedback for efficiency. These findings underscore the benefits of screencasting feedback, highlighting its comprehensibility and individualised nature. Given the rise of digital learning, educators are encouraged to adopt screencasting as a valuable tool for enhancing feedback in academic settings.publishedVersionPaid open acces